The principal form of dementia (senility) is Alzheimer’s disease. Whether or not a person is a health care professional, a health care provider, a family member of an Alzheimer victim, or just a taxpayer, there are good reasons for seeking to understand this condition. Alzheimer’s disease is very costly. The Alzheimer’s Association estimates the cost of the disease in this country to be $80-100 billion each year. This estimate includes the costs of diagnosis, treatment, nursing home care, informal care, and lost income. This staggering financial burden is slated to increase drastically in the next two decades. Approximately four million Americans now have Alzheimer’s disease, and as many as seven million may be afflicted by the year 2010, the year the first of the baby boom generation reaches age sixty-five. A second important reason for educating ourselves about Alzheimer’s disease is that no other chronic medical condition is more devastating to the quality of life. It strips away the personhood of the individual: those human aspects that are held most dear-the ability to think, to plan, to remember, md to function as a productive member of society-are taken away.

A third reason for attributing so much importance to Alzheimer’s disease is its status as a major killer, ranking fourth or fifth among our nation’s most frequent causes of death. It is known that a person diagnosed as having Alzheimer’s disease will, on average, live only one third to one half as long as a person of the same age who does not have the disease. If this increased mortality rate is combined with the incidence of the disease in the general population, it can be demonstrated that Alzheimer’s disease is a principal cause of death, with only heart disease, cancer, and stroke taking a higher toll of human life.

However, it is rare to see Alzheimer’s disease listed on a death certificate- more typically, pneumonia is indicated as the cause of death in the Alzheimer victim. It is logical to assume that the fatal infection would not have been contracted were it not for the debilitated state that directly resulted from the Alzheimer’s disease.

The prevalence, cost, and suffering that result from Alzheimer’s disease will increase dramatically over the next forty years unless the cause md the cure are found. This increase will result from a doubling of the population of older persons within our society. The subgroup that will show the most rapid increase in population is those persons over the age of eighty-five years. These oldest of the old have the highest risk for developing Alzheimer’s disease. It is also these oldest of the old who are at risk for contracting other chronic diseases, all of which increase the need for nursing homes. This will place an increased burden on such facilities.

At present, it is estimated that 40 to 60 percent of the nation’s nursing home residents suffer from dementia (senility). Of those individuals with dementia, the majority are victims of Alzheimer’s disease. Only recently has the significance of this disease entered the public’s consciousness. We have begun to realize that with the aging of our society, America will soon be confronted with an epidemic of age-related medical problems, the most devastating of which will be Alzheimer’s disease.

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