The Next Plague: Alzheimer’s
In the 1970s and 1980s, a plague called AIDS swept through this country. Like a medieval scourge it was mysterious, incurable, and ruthless as it killed those who were far too young to die.
Now, baby-boomers have reason to fear a new scourge: It won’t cut them down in their youth, but if they dodge heart disease and beat cancer they may find themselves trapped in their bodies, watching their minds dissolve.
Did you know that a woman who is now 65 stands a 20% chance of dying of Alzheimer’s? (See Michael Kinsley’s essay in the New Yorker.)
On Bloomberg View Matthew C. Klein has put together a booklet of “visual data” titled: “How Americans Die.” These stunning interactive graphs will startle you. For instance, were you aware that suicide has recently become the leading cause of violent death in the U.S.?
But it is the pages devoted to Alzheimer’s here and here that stopped me in my tracks.
I turns out that about 40% of the increase in Medicare spending since 2011 can be attributed to greater spending on Alzheimer’s treatment.(We don’t have reliable data on Alzheimer’s spending before that.) And that number is bound to climb.)
The Boomers will be the second generation to die of dementia, but the first to see it coming.
These charts are terrifying but important. We need to begin thinking about how to cope with Alzheimer’s. Here, The Mayo Clinic outlines “What is On the Horizon for Alzheimer’s.”
I’m not optimistic about a cure anytime in the foreseeable future. But we definitely need to think about how to care for the many who will be suffering from this dreadful disease.
cross posted with Health Beat blog
The Bloomberg interactive graphs are also fun to use.
In my circles Alzheimers is becoming a major issue for our parents . I have seen little in terms of macro. Thanks Maggie.
I’m dealing with it with my parents.
One of the issues as this involves more people is going to be societies belief systems. When the brain deteriorates who the person is does also. I find it is not just the physical issues of caring for such an individual but the emotional experience as one struggles to make sense of a person they used to know how to communicate with morph into something else. It’s not someone else they become, it is something else.
It is where reality collides with philosophy.
Daniel–
My deepest sympathy.
Yes, I agree. The most difficult part is dealing with a person who is no longer the person you knew. Often she or he becomes a very angry person.
Family members often feel an obligation to try to take care of that person. But if it is at all possible to use any retirement savings your parents had, or to mortgage their house and raise money for a professional caregiver to move in with them, this is what doctors sometimes advise. The other possibility is to find a skilled nursing facility that is set up to deal with Alzheimer’s patients.
I realize that anything like this would be very expensive, and even if
you liquidate your parents’ assets, there might well not be enough money to provide for their care. But anything you can do to lighten your burden would be wise.
Best of luck.
One of the many disappointments with PPACA is the workforce section,the usual commissions and bureaucracy without any real impact on the primary care and nursing workforce. Nurses give the bulk of the care for dementia and Alzheimers.
Something big and bold is required, and that did not happen.
The nursing situation may get ” better” for a while as hospitals dump nurses to offset revenue cuts (not exactly “better” for the patients).
PPACA is better for lawyers than for nurses – go figure.
I wonder if there is a correlation between Alzheimers and suicide? I recall reading that the suicide rate is highest in people over 60.
Maggie, thank you. Yes, we have people in for a total of 4 hrs/day for my step dad. It might be another year at most and then it will be a nursing home.
Save, how do you mean “better” regarding nursing situation? What situation regarding the solution being hospitals cutting nursing staff? This cutting of nursing staff has been going on for 2 decades. I’m not being difficult, I know you know this stuff, so I am interested in what you are saying here.
Lord Koos-
Actually suicides are pretty evenly distributed throughout the population, though they are slightly more common among people 45-54.
http://www.bloomberg.com/dataview/2014-04-17/how-americans-die.html
Save the Rustbelt–
Actually the ACA is very good for nurses.
It lifts salaries for teachers in nursing schools (there was a shortage because the salaries were so low) and greatly increases scholarships
and loans for nursing students.
It also lifts salaries for PCPs who treat Medicaid patients to Medicare levels.
And the ACA supports the whole idea of nurses and docs working together in teams. Reformers also have stood behind the idea of letting Nurse Practitioners work without direct supervision by a doctor.
And it significantly increases funding for community health centers where many nurses and nurse practioners work..
Yes, some short-sighted hospitals (including brand-name hospitals) have been cutting nursing staff as a way of saving $$$.
This will catch up with them soon. Going forward, they will receive inflation increases only if they can show that they are providing “better cared at a lower cost.”– better outcomes, and fewer errors.
The only way to do that is to coordinate care, using teams of doctors and nurses, working together. Cutting nursing staff does not leave to better outcomes or greater patient safety. Quite the opposite.