A Killer That Stalks Seniors

Alzheimer's disease is a ticking time bomb for a nation with an aging population that keeps doubling. Unless a cure is found soon, exploding medical costs will reduce Medicare and Medicaid to rubble, buried under the weight of $1.1 trillion in expenses for care and treatment for a single disease.

That dire prediction by the national Alzheimer's Association is an estimate for the year 2050.  If that seems far fetched, consider that today there are 5.4 million Americans living with Alzheimer's. The annual cost in 2012 for the disease was $200 billion, according to data furnished by the association.

One in every eight older Americans has Alzheimer's.  It is the sixth leading cause of death in the United States, but it is the only one of the top ten diseases that cannot be prevented, cured or even slowed. While death rates for other major diseases have dipped since 2000, Alzheimer's has accelerated 66 percent.

Alzheimer's does more than extract a heavy toll on the medical system.  The Alzheimer assocation's annual report estimated that 15 million Americans today provide unpaid care for patients with the disease.  Without their help, Medicare and Medicaid would bear an additional $210 billion in costs.

As tragic as the statistics are today, the number of Americans affected by the disease is projected to mushroom.  More than 13.8 million Americans are expected to suffer from Alzheimer's by the year 2050, a three-fold increase.

An aging population is to blame.  Baby Boomers, born between 1946 and 1964, will be turning 65 and older, swelling the ranks of the aged. The number of Americans 65+ will double by 2050, growing from 40.3 million to 88.5 million, according to the 2010 Census.

Americans living longer will tax the Medicare and Medicaid programs with skyrocketing costs for the treatment of Alzheimer's.  The association estimates the combined expense burden for the two entitlement programs will soar by 500 percent by 2050, less than four decades from now.

There needs to be a sense of urgency to deal with the impending financial combustion.  Government funding for the disease was $606 million last year, far less than what the nation spends on research for HIV ($3 billion) and cancer ($6 billion).

There are obviously humanitarian reasons for the country to make Alzheimer's a priority.  The disease is a death sentence for everyone with the condition.  Saving lives will also reduce the long term care costs associated with the disease that robs people of their memory and saps their financial resources.

A public-private partnership, spearheaded by the medical community and the government, is the best hope for finding a cure.  The country needs to make it a top priority on par with the United States effort to launch a man into space.

The U.S. can't afford to wait until 2050 to deal with this issue.  By then it will be too late for the 13.8 million Americans expected to be impacted by the disease.