HealthBridge's In-Home Care Blog

We're all frightened of losing ourselves to Alzheimer's Disease.  Watching our mind slip away while our body still has vigor is a terrifying idea.  

Now, the disease has a new wrinkle that, if you can imagine, makes it even scarier.  

The $20,000,000,000,000 cost.  

While we struggle through the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression, we're forced to acknowledge that caring for our loved ones with Alzheimer's Disease will completely disrupt our economy.  

We knew this impending neurological epidemic was huge, but until this new study by the Alzheimer's Association, we didn't know it was thirteen-zeros-huge.  Click here to download the full report. 

What, exactly, does this mean?

• By the year 2050, 13.5 million people will have Alzheimer's Disease.  That's compared to roughly 5.1 million who have it today.  
• The annual costs of care would also increase from $172 billion to more than $1 trillion.
• Medicare costs will rise by more than 600% and Medicaid costs will soar to $178 billion, up from the current $34 billion. 

What can we do about it?

There is not a cure for Alzheimer's Disease.  Wonderful and worthwhile organizations like the Alzheimer's Association are working for a cure.  They focus on two avenues:

1. Delaying onset of the disease.  A lot of encouraging research shows that we can personally help prevent the disease.  Living a healthy life, exercising and eating a Mediterranean diet can all help.  A breakthrough that delayed the onset of Alzheimer's Disease would reduce the number of people with the disease.  Needless to say, we want this.  
2. Slowing the progression of the disease.  Living with the early stages of the disease is life changing, but can be bearable.  Bill Bridgwater showed us a few weeks ago that "Alzheimer's Disease is something people have, not who they are."  Slowing the progression of the disease would increase the number of people with Alzheimer's Disease, but would improve the life of everyone afflicted.  

Here at HealthBridge, our purpose is simple:  to help people care for each other.  We believe finding a cure for Alzheimer's Disease is consistent with our purpose.  

In a couple of weeks, we'll announce the details of our plan to support the search for a cure for Alzheimer's Disease.  Until then, would you send me your ideas?  Please leave a comment below or send me an email to matt (at) myhealthbridge dot com (spelled out to avoid the spam-bots).  

P.S:  The costs above don't include the unpaid care provided by family members and friends.  In 2009, that cost was estimated to be $144 billion.  Whoa.