Interesting article in the AARP Bulletin this month - Wheres the War on Alzheimers? Some of the information: The most espensive disease in America is devouring federal and state health care budgets, and depleting the life savings of millions of victims and their families. Recent studies show that the cost of caring for Americans with Alzheimers disease and other dementias has surpassed the cost of treatment for cancer patients or victims of heart disease. And yet Alzheimers is an also-ran when it comes to federal funding for research on prevention and treatment. In the intense political competition for federal dollars, other diseases come out far ahead of Alzheimers. Since Alzheimers is slow to progress, the disease can linger for years, or decades in some cases. An that makes the cost, both for government insurance programs and for families, which frequently bear the burden of daily care - extremely high. For diseases such as cancer or HIV/AIDS, there are high-profile survivors who can tell their own stories to promote research. But Alzheimers is a disease with no prominent survivor - since there have been no survivors so far - who can personify a campaign for more federal funding. If there were sufficient funding for Alzheimers research, there are several promising areas of study that could bear fruit. Finding a solution is almost certainly going to require significant sums of federal research funding. Getting that additional funding, in turn, is going to require greater efforts to make Alzheimers one of the diseases that enjoy political favor, and then the support of politicians.
Posted on: Thu, 08 Jan 2015 21:46:23 +0000
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