Rob Gundermann - Older Americans

Alzheimer’s disease, the most common form of dementia, is largely a disease of age.  The longer a person lives the more likely they are to be diagnosed with Alzheimer’s.  In fact, almost half of those over age 85 have Alzheimer’s type dementia.  As our natural lifespan increases the number of people with Alzheimer’s disease will increase as well.  Couple this with the aging of America and the baby boomer generation reaching the age where Alzheimer’s typically strikes and a looming crisis begins to emerge. This dramatic increase of Alzheimer’s cases will substantially impact state and federal budgets if we don’t find a cure or better medications to treat the disease.  Until new drugs reach market we will need to focus on prevention and finding new and innovative methods to help people with dementia remain in a community based setting for as long as possible.  The average cost of nursing home care for someone with Alzheimer’s disease is over $90,000 per year and in the majority of nursing homes Medicaid is the primary payer. If we can delay institutionalization for even a brief period of time we will save an enormous amount of money. Diet, exercise and maintaining brain health as well as overall body health are the best methods of preventing or delaying the onset of the disease that we know of today.  We know that there is a relationship between brain health and heart health so we recommend eating heart healthy foods and regular exercise to keep the heart...
Source: PHRMA - Category: Pharmaceuticals Authors: Source Type: news