Sunday, March 21, 2010

Dementia and Alzheimer’s Disease – Latest Report on Alzheimer’s Disease

Dementia is an age-associated condition, causing a reduction in mental or intellectual functioning.  The most common cause of dementia is Alzheimer’s disease. It accounts for 60 to 80% of all irreversible dementias, and is characterized chiefly by difficulty remembering names and recent events, and, very often, apathy and depression in the early stages. Later stages are marked with reduced judgment and reasoning, confusion and disorientation, behavior difficulties, and communication.

This month, the Alzheimer’s Association released its latest report on this disease, 2010 Alzheimer’s Disease Facts and Figures, the latest collection of statistics on its prevalence in different racial and ethnic groups, costs of care, and mortality. The full document can be found and downloaded from Alzheimer's report.

Some of the major highlights of this report include:

  • Alzheimer’s disease was the 7th leading cause of death in the U.S. for 2006, across all ages, and the 5th leading cause of death for those over age 65. Deaths from this disease increased approximately 46% from 2000 thru 2006, in contrast with reductions in other diseases (stroke, down 18%, prostate cancer, down 8%, heart disease, down 11%, and HIV, down 16%).
  • African-Americans and Hispanics are at greater risk than Caucasians, with the former group being about twice as likely, and the latter group being 1.5 times as likely as Caucasians to develop the condition. Though there is no known genetic factor that would account for these racial differences, other conditions, such as high blood pressure and diabetes are being studied as increased risk factors.
  • Another significant finding is that African-Americans and Hispanics are less likely to be given the diagnosis, even though the rate of the disease is higher, reflecting that diagnoses will occur later in the course of the disease than for Caucasians.
  • More women than men have dementia, because women live longer, and not due to any gender differences.
  • Almost 11 million people in the U.S. provide care for a person with Alzheimer’s disease or related dementia.

The full report and other valuable information can be found on the website of the Alzheimer’s Association.

The CoHealth website endeavors to provide helpful educational programs for all caregivers working with older adults, from professionals, to home care providers, to family members. See the entire range of educational programs at http://www.cohealth.org/. Two especially useful programs are the CoHealth courses on differentiating among depression, dementia, and delirium, and understanding sensory losses that occur with aging. Continuing education credit is available for many health care disciplines.

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