It’s like watching the path of a slow-moving meteor to the naked eye. Everyone can see it coming, everyone knows the damage will be catastrophic – and yet our collective response has been the rug and I hope the cocktail umbrella will be enough to protect us. This is where America stands today with dementia. We have a small and very quick window to prepare: strengthening care systems, supporting families, investing in hedge funds and treatment and building infrastructure that can absorb the worst of the impact. If we fail to act now, this crisis will accelerate past the point where preparation is possible – and we will be left with only injuries.
The scale is staggering. The number of people over the age of 65 is It grows very fast and very fast in US history. The risk of dementia does not appear suddenly. It rises strongly after 65then finish mostly after 80 and especially after 85. Here’s what it really means: If you live long enough, if you live long enough, dementia is not far away. One in three of us will improveand for those who don’t, many will end up as caregivers. No family will escape the reach of this disease.
When dementia comes, everything changes. People who live with the condition continuously, inevitably lose the ability to manage their daily lives or participate fully in society. Patients put themselves at risk of fires, car accidents, devastating financial scams – or being found by the police after wandering around, panicked and dismembered, with their belongings. Missed medications and frequent hospital stays are common. And behind every person in hospital is an extended family in a broken place, often with little support.
Families are promising episodes of turmoil, quitting jobs to provide unpaid care and giving up many days of burning work in the big economy. Now repeat that reality on the other side 70 million Boomers baby In the US, you’re starting to see a measure of what’s to come. The social, economic and moral consequences will affect every individual community. We are nowhere near a prepared place.
To meet today’s demand, the US will need more than 125 times the number of dementia specialists currently employed. The shortage is getting worse by the day, Changing wait times from months to years-But for many families, those lost years are devastating. Geriatrics has long faced a practical problem, but the gap is wide even in cognitive and behavioral neurology.
Economically, costs are already crushing: hospital, home care, facilities and the paid work of millions of caregivers. Aszheimer’s Association Estimates Dementia costs the US economy more than ever $400 billion every yearseen to exceed $1 trillion by 2050. That number includes health care and lost productivity and unpaid productivity for millions of family caregivers. Without adequate intervention, dementia care will continue to consume more health care dollars, driver premiums and Medicare and Medicaid food budgets. Businesses will be faced with the departure and turnover of employees from far away loved ones. The labor market will shrink as will the demand for skilled caregivers.
We’ve seen a version of this before. Remember 2020, when every doctor became a 19th doctor? The ripple effects of not adjusting will similarly overwhelm the entire health system. First, it will be neurologists who work with dementia, followed by primary care providers, neurologists and the structure of dementia, which will fail, psychosis episodes are prevented. The US health system will use more resources and time to care for these patients without helping them manage their condition because there are not enough professionals to handle the need.
The bittersweet feeling is that we finally have a treatment that works – two FDA approved drugs that is May it slow the progression of alzheimer’s in its early stages. But they are expensive and work best before symptoms appear, when diagnosis is most difficult. Health systems try to balance short- and long-term costs, but dementia is a long game, and ignoring it until the peaks of the problem will ensure high spending and great suffering. So how can we make sure we are prepared?
Public Policy must take into account the reality of the people. Whether we invest now or pay later is no longer a moral question. It is Macroeconomic. For the wider community, we need to educate about dementia. While most Americans probably know the difference between cancer and “lung cancer,” few understand the difference between “dementia” and “alzheimer’s disease.” Social Understanding is the foundation of early detection.
For health care professionals, we must prepare every provider, regardless of specialty, how to recognize and respond to mental illness. We also need to make more use of health care payment policies and systems. New Guide Modelwhich changes compensation for mental health care for traditional Medicare beneficiaries, is an encouraging step in the right direction. Medicare and Long-Term Care policy can reduce the burden on unpaid caregivers and improve access to home support. Building employee incentives – Loan forgiveness, fellowship funding, pay equity – doctors, nurses and social workers entering Geriatrics and Neurology can help alleviate the ongoing labor shortage.
Our health system must reward the right effective care – and prioritize early intervention where care has the greatest impact – to ensure that the right patients get the right treatment at the right time, every time. Policymakers must maintain a bipartisan focus. It doesn’t matter our political affiliation, we all have brains to protect and people to care.
The US still treats dementia as a private crisis and not a matter of national policy. If we take anything away from the lessons learned during the pandemic, America needs a strategy that fits the scope of the challenge, one that adapts public education, workforce development, clinical development, clinical research to meet the coming tsunami.
At present, there is no treatment for dementia and dementia that is needed. If we wait until the crisis has fully presented itself, our options will be limited and the cost – both economic and human. By 2050, dementia will affect the entire family. Mine is coming, and yours is coming. Are we going to act now, or look back in 30 years, wishing we had done more before the Meteor hit?
