Alzheimer's disease currently affects one in 10 people over age 65 and nearly half of those over age 85.
More than 19 million Americans say they have a family member with the disease, and 37 million say they know somebody affected with Alzheimer's.
In the United States, the average lifetime cost per Alzheimer patient is US$174,000. (These figures are from the U.S. Alzheimer's Association).
Resources:
For information about Alzheimer's, see the Alzheimer's Disease Education and Referral (ADEAR) Center's website (www.alzheimers.org). ADEAR is run by the National Institute on Aging (one of the US Government's National Institutes of Health).
Other useful resources include:
The Alzheimer Research Forum: "A scientific knowledge base on Alzheimer disease, with research news, expert commentaries, and databases for peer-reviewed articles, drugs, research reagents, grants, jobs, conferences, and more."
www.alzforum.org
Cognitive Neurology and Alzheimer's Disease Center at Northwestern University
http://www.brain.northwestern.edu/mdad/index.html
Medline Plus
http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/alzheimersdisease.html
Links to national organizations that offer support:
http://www.alz.org/ Site of the U.S. Alzheimer’s Association.
http://www.alzheimers.org.uk/ Site of the U.K. Alzheimer's Society
http://www.alzheimer.ca/ Site of the Canadian Alzheimer's Association
http://www.alzheimers.org.au/ Site of the Australian Alzheimer's Association
www.alzheimers.org.nz Site of Alzheimer's New Zealand
Some articles of interest:
a good introduction from the Harvard Mahoney Neuroscience Newsletter:
http://www.med.harvard.edu/publications/On_The_Brain/Volume2/Special/SPAlz.html
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