10 MILLION "Baby Boomers" will get Alzheimer's. That's twice as many as have it now. Half a million new cases each year by 2010.
I know Patty will weigh in with her spiel on how we have to focus on defeating AD now...before it goes those 10 million....and 30 or 50 million people join our ranks, blogging and reading about what this hell on earth is like.
By 2010, projections say there will be 500,000 new cases of the mind-wasting disease each year, and nearly one million new cases annually by 2050, the report estimates....
Right now, there are 10 million caregivers providing care (to the 5.2 million Americans afflicted with AD), many of them family members, at enormous personal cost...(A)n expanded circle of people ... are affected by this disease. It's not just the person with the disease. It's not just their immediate caregiver -- it's the children and grandchildren....
Medicare currently spends more than three times as much money on people with Alzheimer's and other dementias than it does for the average Medicare recipient. In 2005, Medicare spent $91 billion on people with Alzheimer's and other dementias. By 2010, that number is expected to climb to $160 billion, and by 2015, to $189 billion annually...
What else can I even say? You're here reading this; you can imagine a world with even more Alzheimer's in it.
An ugly world, one I don't want to know.
(screenprint)
In other news, I have a new job! Full time, great pay, as a Production Editor at an office only a couple of miles from the nursing home where my father died. I could have visited him every day if I had had this job six months ago.
Living in the Shadow of Alzheimers
4 years ago
4 comments:
The number of people who will be impacted by Alzheimer's disease in the coming years will be enough to sink the economy of the United States. The most powerful nation in the world has no defense against this disease. There is no "abstinence" so people won't catch it. There is no "healthy" approach to living that will spare people. There is no vaccination protocol to up your odds.
There is nothing you can do to avoid this. Just as you sit and wait for the sun to surely rise each morning, you will sit and wait for Alzheimer's to knock on your door.
This, to me, is unacceptable. We allow this to be "the-way-it-is". We tolerate inaction, the blind eye and deaf ear of the great majority of US citizens.
I'll keep standing on my street corner rallying the cry - WE WILL NOT ACCEPT THIS - until someone listens. I'll keep my little beggar can out there pleading for donations to fund Alzheimer's researchers. I'll keep writing.
Alzheimer's is CURABLE, it's TREATABLE, it's BEATABLE. But the Alzheimer's scientists in their labs are the ONLY ones fighting. And they say they are only funded to do about ten percent of the research they need to do. At that rate, we're destined to be the burden on our children that will crush them.
It doesn't take a crystal ball to figure out this beast of a disease is coming. It doesn't take an economist to figure out we can't afford to deal with it. It doesn't take a politician to figure out a sick aging population will crush the "future" of American youth.
It takes us - you and me - to turn this thinking around. We've been through it. We've lived it. We know in a way we wish we didn't, what this disease REALLY means. We know exactly what we're talking about. And if those who have been through it don't warn the others that are headed this way, we shirk one of our greatest responsibilities - to be our brother's keeper.
Soapbox speeches on blogs seem truly pathetic, but I keep imaging someday, someone with the power to turn things around will stumble upon all of these writings and listen. They'll see my little beggar can and donate. They'll get behind the solution before they become the problem.
Again, thank you for the opportunity to bring this up. There are no easy answers but this - put your money to work in the labs that are fighting this disease. And if you're interested in doing that, go to www.theunforgettablefund.com.
Thanks,
Patty McNally Doherty
Congrats on your new job Bert! How is your mother doing these days?
OR NOT
ALZHEIMER'S DISEASE does not have to happen.
Consider an integrative medicine ALZHEIMER'S Solution.
WWW.APOEGENEDIET.com
Preventing Heart Disease, Alzheimer’s Disease and Chronic Illness one patient at a time.
"The Apo E Gene Diet: A Breakthrough in Changing Cholesterol, Weight, Heart and Alzheimer's Disease Using the Body's Own Genes, describes nutritional plans for each ApoE genotype. I recommend it."
Dr. Andrew Weil
"This book represents the future of medicine, an individualized, personalized approach that honors our genetic uniqueness. Pamela McDonald brings together a complete health program that honors all we are - body, mind, and spirit."
Larry Dossey, MD
Author, The Extraordinary Healing Power of Ordinary Things
OR NOT
ALZHEIMER'S DISEASE does not have to happen.
Consider an integrative medicine ALZHEIMER'S Solution.
WWW.APOEGENEDIET.com
Preventing Heart Disease, Alzheimer’s Disease and Chronic Illness one patient at a time.
"The Apo E Gene Diet: A Breakthrough in Changing Cholesterol, Weight, Heart and Alzheimer's Disease Using the Body's Own Genes, describes nutritional plans for each ApoE genotype. I recommend it."
Dr. Andrew Weil
"This book represents the future of medicine, an individualized, personalized approach that honors our genetic uniqueness. Pamela McDonald brings together a complete health program that honors all we are - body, mind, and spirit."
Larry Dossey, MD
Author, The Extraordinary Healing Power of Ordinary Things
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