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Published on January 20, 2025
Study Warns Dementia Cases in U.S. to Double by 2060, Arizona Tops Growth Rate for Alzheimer'sSource: Unsplash/Robina Weermeijer

It appears the United States faces a burgeoning health crisis, as a new study suggests we're on track to see dementia cases double by 2060. If current trends hold, this could mean about a million new cases per year, up from the present rate of approximately 500,000. The research, a collaborative effort between powerhouses like Mayo Clinic, New York University, and Johns Hopkins University, got published in Nature Medicine and spells out a stark future.

In a study that rounded up data on 15,043 adults from 1987 to 2020, researchers saw the odds of getting dementia after the age of 55 hit 42 percent, a jump from previous estimates. "Our study results forecast a dramatic rise in the burden from dementia in the United States over the coming decades, with one in two Americans expected to experience cognitive difficulties after age 55," epidemiologist Josef Coresh from New York University told ScienceAlert. It doesn't help that healthcare costs for dementia are already sky-high, hitting around $600 billion yearly in the US alone.

Arizona, in particular, is feeling the pinch with the state leading the nation in the growth rate of Alzheimer's cases, according to the Arizona Alzheimer's Association. This is more than statistics for Phoenix local Leonard Chayrez, who was diagnosed with Alzheimer's Disease in his 50s. He and his partner Mark have since become advocates for early diagnosis and treatment access. "It took another three and a half years to finally get a mild cognitive impairment diagnosis because he was young and doctors, PAs, a neurologist all thought it was stress," Garrity told ABC15, highlighting the need for policy changes on all government levels.

Discrepancies in dementia risk are notable, with women facing a higher risk than men (48 percent versus 35 percent) and Black adults more than White adults (44 percent versus 41 percent). Those carrying two copies of the APOE4 gene, linked to higher dementia risk, are staring down a 59 percent likelihood. The study notes that "racial and ethnic minority adults and individuals from lower economic backgrounds have a higher burden of important risk factors, potentially contributing to differences in long-term dementia risk." Something as manageable as making hearing aids more widely available could play a role in bringing down these numbers, as per ScienceAlert.

A major impediment remains in the way dementia cases are documented. Inaccurate medical records, early-stage dementia slipping by undiagnosed, and underreporting in society's marginal corners can be blamed for the new estimates of risk towering over prior ones. In the face of these predictions, it's not all doom and gloom: the researchers believe tackling related health issues, like high blood pressure and heart disease, might mitigate the mounting cases. As Dr. Parichita Choudhury from the Banner Sun Health Research Institute hints, the need to tackle this looming issue head-on is critical, "Everybody thinks about brain health as not an afterthought but really the tsunami is here and how do we really make an effort to start changing the direction of the wind," as per ABC15.