Alzheimers research funding lags other diseases- dementia

The most expensive disease in America is devouring federal and state health care budgets, and depleting the life savings of millions of victims and their families. But the greatest cost of

Alzheimer's disease and other forms of dementia is not financial, but personal. This cruel ailment steals our memories, steals our independence and finally steals our dignity by eroding

the ability to manage the basic tasks of daily life. Far more research funding is needed to find the prevention or cure for Alzheimer’s, the nation’s most expensive disease.

AMELIE-BENOIST/UIG via Getty Images Recent studies show that the cost of caring for Americans with Alzheimer's disease and other dementias has surpassed the cost of treatment for cancer

patients or victims of heart disease. And these costs are virtually certain to go up. While the deaths from some cancers and heart disease are declining, the number of Alzheimer's

cases continues to increase every year as the population grows older. "If we don't get some control over this disease," says Huntington Potter, a neurobiologist at the

University of Colorado School of Medicine, "it's going to bankrupt both Medicare and Medicaid." And yet Alzheimer's is an also-ran when it comes to federal funding for

research on prevention and treatment. In the intense political competition for federal dollars, other diseases come out far ahead of Alzheimer's. Washington has committed some $5.4

billion this fiscal year to cancer research, about $1.2 billion to heart disease and $3 billion to research on HIV/AIDS. Research funding for Alzheimer's will reach only about $566

million. "It's just a fact that some diseases have stronger political backing, and that leads to federal funding," says Sen. Susan Collins, the Maine Republican who chairs the

Senate Special Committee on Aging. "If you contrast our Alzheimer's funding to the other major diseases, or compare the spending on research to the cost of care, we're not

spending nearly enough to find ways to deal with this problem." A DEVASTATING DISEASE The Alzheimer's Association estimates that 5.2 million Americans had Alzheimer's disease

in 2014, a figure that has risen steadily over the years. Nearly two-thirds of Alzheimer's sufferers are women. Alzheimer's is the most common form of dementia, which is a

collective term for a number of conditions marked by a loss of mental abilities. Generally the disease begins near the hippocampus, the brain's memory center, and then spreads to areas

of the brain that control language, judgment and physical activity. The disease was named for a German physician, Alois Alzheimer, who presented a case study in 1906 of a female patient

exhibiting loss of memory and other cognitive issues. An autopsy of her brain showed the buildup of proteins that are now known to be hallmarks of the diseases. These proteins form clumps

known as "plaques," which appear to contribute to neuron death, and "tangles" of protein fiber that disrupt the neuron's transit system. Eventually communication

between neurons breaks down. Young people can develop Alzheimer's, but the disease is most common among those over 65. It is degenerative, which is to say that the plaques and tangles

get worse over time. There is no cure for Alzheimer's, and no treatment that appears to stop its spread in the brain. "There's never been a patient who recovered from

Alzheimer's," notes Robert Egge, chief public policy officer at the Alzheimer's Association. Experts emphasize that the severe decline in mental capacity caused by

Alzheimer's is not a normal sign of aging. The minor problems that people describe as "senior moments" — you can't find your keys one morning, or you can't pull up

the name of the group that sang "Stop! In the Name of Love" — are common and not indicative of any disease. Signs of a clinical state of dementia, in contrast, are much more

serious: You can never remember where you put your keys, or you have trouble remembering just about anybody's name. STAGGERING COSTS Since Alzheimer's is slow to progress, the

disease can linger for years, or decades in some cases. And that makes the cost — both for government insurance programs and for families, which frequently bear the burden of daily care —

extremely high. "Because there is no treatment to stop the disease, an Alzheimer's patient is probably going to need some type of care for years and years," Egge says.

Alzheimer's currently costs the United States some $214 billion annually, according to federal government estimates. Care of the victims will cost Medicare and Medicaid $150 billion in

the current fiscal year; the remaining costs will fall largely on patients and their families. A 2014 study by Caring.com, a website for family caregivers, reported that 42 percent of

families that include someone with Alzheimer's spend more than $20,000 per year for care. It may take years for the protein blockage in the brain to cause diagnosable cognitive

problems. Kyle Bean This situation makes families desperate to find any kind of medical treatment that might relieve the burden. When Harry Johns, the president of the Alzheimer's

Association, appeared recently on a C-SPAN interview program, caller after caller asked him whether this drug or that supplement might be the miracle cure they're hoping for. A somber

Johns had to give the same disappointing answer each time: "We have not yet found any substance that deals with the basic causes of the disease." That makes the need for a massive

government effort to fund research critical, experts say.