The Coming Alzheimers Explosion
In a recent article in the Hamilton Spectator, a Hamilton-based specialist in geriatric medicine warned that the number of Alzheimer's disease patients can be expected to explode in number as the baby boom generation ages. Dr. Willie Molloy, who holds the St. Peter's Hospital McMaster Chair in Aging, has pointed out that the prevalence of Alzheimer's cases can be expected to double every five years and that that disease that affects eight percent of those over 65 now can be expected to affect sixteen per cent of those over 70 five years from now. Dr. Molloy has been quoted as saying that the Ontario Ministry of Health and Long-term Care is not ready to address the additional drain on available resources that the increasing number of Alzheimer's and other dementa patients will require.
It is currently estimated that there are 100,000 Alzheimer's patients in Ontario and 90 per cent of them are over 65. There are likely many more in the early, mild cognitively impaired stage who remain undiagnosed.
Congratulation for your blog, Romeo, it is very interesting!
Posted by: Dani | January 25, 2007 at 12:24 PM
interesting and scary... just what i like... hopefully some better treatments become available as the number of cases increase over the years
Posted by: the constant skeptic | January 28, 2007 at 05:51 PM