Alzheimer’s on the March

The generation affectionately known as the Baby Boomers may yet go down in history as Generation A, the top of the letter A standing for that great pyramid of aging boomers destined to suffer more from Alzheimer’s disease than any generation in history. The statistics are stark: more than 65,000 deaths a year, five million Americans with Alzheimer’s currently, that number set to nearly quadruple by midcentury and to be dwarfed by the worldwide burden in the year 2100.

The probability of contracting Alzheimer’s doubles every three years after the age of 65. At retirement, only one percent of people are afflicted, but five percent have it in their early seventies, the fraction rises to one-quarter by the early eighties, and at least one half of all nonagenarians have AD. I have looked high and wide in an effort to ascertain whether this represents an epidemic independent of people just getting older, but there does not seem to be any clarity on the issue.