Jessi Steele

The numbers and statistics surrounding dementia are staggering. Worldwide, there are now an estimated 24 million people living with some form of dementia. Without a major medical breakthrough in the fight against dementia, this number could jump to as many as 84 million who have age-related memory loss by the year 2040.
[Dementia is a subject that most people try to avoid. Just the thought of memory loss – in a loved one, friend, co-worker or, worse yet, ourselves — makes us terribly uncomfortable. Unless we are confronted directly with dementia, we prefer to think of it as “someone else’s problem.”

But dementia – one of the world’s fastest growing diseases — won’t go away and it is fast becoming “everyone’s problem.” A look at the facts and statistics surrounding dementia clearly show that it is a massive issue, possibly a medical catastrophe in the making, with no easy solution.
Indeed, the numbers and statistics surrounding dementia are staggering. Worldwide, there are now an estimated 24 million people living with some form of dementia. Without a major medical breakthrough in the fight against dementia, this number could jump to as many as 84 million who have age-related memory loss by the year 2040.
Although there are a number of forms of dementia, Alzheimer’s is the most common, and most well-known, of the age-related memory loss diseases. Currently, more than five million Americans suffer from Alzheimer’s, and it is the seventh leading cause of death in the U.S. About 13% of Americans over the age of 65 have Alzheimer’s and half of those over age 85 will develop Alzheimer’s — or a closely related dementia.
Health analysts estimate that in just five years the number of Americans with Alzheimer’s will jump to 7.7 million and by 2050 the number is projected to more than double to 16 million. So why is this disease growing so rapidly?
Simply put, our population is “graying” and our citizens are living much longer than any previous generation. In fact, the fastest growing segment of our population is the over 80 age group, and the odds of becoming demented for the very elderly are much higher.
We need to educate, educate, educate about dementia!