Alzheimer's: A Rapidly Growing Disease

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Fareeha Sial Biology 1 Professor Brady 19 November, 2012 Alzheimer’s: A Rapidly Growing Disease Alzheimer’s disease was first identified more than 100 years ago by German Psychiatrist Alois Alzheimer but research into its symptoms, causes, risk factors and treatment has gained momentum in the last 30 years. Alzheimer’s disease, a progressive brain disorder that damages patient’s minds, shatters families and costs the nation more than $200 billion each year. Over 15 million Americans provide unpaid care for a person with Alzheimer’s disease. Alzheimer’s disease affects people in different ways but the most common symptom pattern begins with gradually worsening ability to remember new information. Difficulty remembering…show more content…
Current research from the National Institute on Aging indicates that the prevalence of Alzheimer’s disease doubles every five years beyond age 65. As the population ages the disease impacts agreater percentage of Americans. The incidence of the disease is rising in line with the aging population in America. 2012 Alzheimer’s disease Facts and Figures article provides a statistical resource for U.S. data related to Alzheimer’s disease, the most common type of dementia. An estimated 5.4 million Americans of all ages have Alzheimer’s disease in 2012. This figure includes 5.2 million people age 65 or older and 200,000 individuals under age 65 who have younger onset Alzheimer’s. One in eight people age 65 and older has Alzheimer’s disease and nearly half of people age 85 and older have Alzheimer’s disease. More women than men have Alzheimer’s disease. Almost two third of Americans with Alzheimer’s are women which is explained by the fact that women live longer on average than men. Older African Americans are probably twice as likely to have Alzheimer’s as older Whites, and Hispanics are about one and…show more content…
So the number of persons with Alzheimer’s disease in the US population will continue to increase unless new discoveries facilitate prevention of the disease. These estimates of a substantial increase in Alzheimer’s disease prevalence assume that the age-, race-, and education-specific risk of disease will remain constant over the next 50 years. The large public health challenge is to make these projections obsolete and irrelevant by discovering routes to prevention of the illness through better understanding of its underlying biology and by discovery of modifiable risk factors. Living with Alzheimer’s disease has become a heart breaking reality for our aging population. References: 1. Alzheimer's Association. 2012 Alzheimer's disease facts and figures. Alzheimer's and Dementia: The Journal of the Alzheimer's Association. March 2012; 8:131–168 2. Hebert, Liesi E., et al. "Alzheimer Disease in the US Population." Arch Neurol 60 (2003): 1119-1122. 3. Evans, Denis A., et al. "Prevalence of Alzheimer's disease in a community population of older persons." JAMA: the journal of the American Medical Association 262.18

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