Follow Up Article

This is a follow up to your article ‘Alzheimer’s advances show need for better drugs’. Although innovative breakthroughs were made in Alzheimer’s research throughout 2008 dubbing this, ‘The Year in Alzheimer Science’, we still do not know the cause of Alzheimer’s or how to prevent it. Clinical trials are imperative to finding a cure for this disease that is presently diagnosed every 70 seconds. This is the sixth leading cause of death in the country, surpassing diabetes; it is the fifth leading cause of death among individuals 65 and older. From 2000 to 2006, while deaths from other major diseases dropped—heart disease, breast cancer, prostate cancer, and stroke—deaths from Alzheimer’s disease rose a staggering 47.1 percent. The direct and indirect costs of Alzheimer’s and other dementias to Medicare, Medicaid, and businesses amount to more than $148 billion annually. If a cure is not found, our current health care system cannot sustain this influx. By mid-century someone will development Alzheimer’s every 33 seconds. Unfortunately, this is not a disease that our country can continue to turn a cold shoulder to—one that will only affect the elderly, or certain segments of the population. This disease will adversely affect your life whether you chose to acknowledge it or not.