Alzheimer’s Deaths in US Increased by 123%

Health Wellness

Image result for alzheimer’s disease increase

Have you ever traveled through Florida or Arizona in the winter months? If you spend any time in either state, you will notice a huge number of seniors. Florida seems to be the destination of choice for many retirees from the eastern part of the United States. Many just winter in Florida and then travel back north to their original homes in the summer and others just sell their northern homes and move permanently to the temperate climate of Florida.

Many retirees from the central and western states flock to sunny Arizona in the winter, just like the easterners flock to Florida. Their annual migration is why the local nickname for these seniors is ‘snowbirds’.

Having lived in Arizona for most of my life, I can testify that there are times in the winter in some locations that Arizona license plates on cars are the minority. It’s normal to see plates from Colorado, Wyoming, Montana, Idaho, Oregon, Washington, North & South Dakota, Nebraska, Iowa Kansas along with British Columbia, Alberta and Saskatchewan, Canada.

At one time, I heard that the metropolitan Phoenix area increases by over 1.5 million seniors each winter. And like Florida, an increasing number of those seniors decide to sell their northern homes and make Arizona their permanent homes.

With the increasing number of seniors comes the increasing need and cost for senior-related health concerns, including Alzheimer’s disease. Alzheimer’s and other forms of dementia are now considered to be the 6th leading cause of death in the US and the current outlook only expects that to steadily climb.

A recent report says that currently the cost of taking care of Alzheimer’s patients, and those with other forms of dementia, currently runs about $277 billion a year. While that is staggering, it is estimated that at the current rate of increasing number of Alzheimer’s and dementia cases, that by 2050, the annual cost will exceed $1.1 TRILLION.

Why?

While deaths due to heart disease dropped by 11% from 2000 to 2015, the number of deaths from Alzheimer’s disease increased by 123% over the same time period. States like Florida and Arizona could feel the brunt of the costs and deaths due to Alzheimer’s and other forms of dementia.

It is estimated that about 5.7 million Americans currently have Alzheimer’s and about 540,000 of those live in Florida (nearly 10%). In 2015, there were 7,031 deaths in Florida alone that were due to Alzheimer’s. Worse yet, experts expect the number of Alzheimer’s cases in just Florida will increase by 33.3% in just the next 7 years.

In reports like this, most everyone just thinks about the people suffering from this deadly form of dementia, but the cost and toll goes far beyond those with the affliction. In 2017, about 16 million Americans were reported to have spent 18.4 BILLION hours caring (physically, emotionally and financially) for Alzheimer’s patients. If one were to place a dollar cost on that care, it is estimated it would tally over $232 billion.

In Florida alone, about 1.1 million people provided about 1.27 billion hours of care for those suffering from Alzheimer’s in 2017.

While Florida and Arizona may feel the largest impact of this, no where in the US is immune to the ravaging cost of lives, time, money and care, all associated with Alzheimer’s disease and that impact is only expected to continue to skyrocket.

A lot of time and money is being spent in trying to discover the exact cause of Alzheimer’s with the hopes of finding a cure or at least finding effective ways to treat the progressively deadly disease of brain and we all need to hope and pray that the research sees success very soon.

Alzheimer’s Disease

Related Posts