Population of Americans with Alzheimer ’s will more than double by 2060, UCLA study shows

About 15 million Americans will have either Alzheimer ’s dementia or mild cognitive impairment by 2060, up from approximately 6.08 million this year, according to a new study by researchers at the UCLA Fielding School of Public Health.The findings highlight the need to develop measures that could slow the progression of the disease in people who have indications of neuropathological changes that could eventually lead to Alzheimer ’s dementia, said Ron Brookmeyer, professor of biostatistics at the UCLA Fielding School of Public Health and the study’s lead author. The country’s population is aging and with it comes a growing number of people with Alzheimer’s disease.Thestudy is published today in the peer-reviewed Alzheimer ’s and Dementia: The Journal of the Alzheimer’s Association. The study is the first of its kind that has estimated the numbers of Americans with preclinical Alzheimer’s disease or mild cognitive impairment.“There are about 47 million people in the U.S. today who have some evidence of preclinical Alzheimer’s, which means they have either a build-up of protein fragments called beta-amyloid or neurodegeneration of the brain but don’t yet have symptoms,” Brookmeyer said. “Many of them will not p rogress to Alzheimer’s dementia in their lifetimes. We need to have improved methods to identify which persons will progress to clinical symptoms, and develop interventions for them that could slow the progression of the disease, if not stop i...
Source: UCLA Newsroom: Health Sciences - Category: Universities & Medical Training Source Type: news