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Alzheimer's Advocates Seek More Research Money

From NJIT Staff and Wire Reports

Costs to government health-care programs associated with Alzheimer's disease will soar in the next decade even before the massive baby boom generation begins to feel the full wrath of the remorseless brain disease, an advocacy group said in a recent report. But, the need for increased funding, says one NJIT researcher, goes beyond the work to find a cure.

The Alzheimer's Association, the largest private funder of Alzheimer's research, asked Congress to double U.S. spending on efforts to find a cure for an illness that has ensnared 4 million Americans and preys mostly on the elderly.

"While it is very important to fund research for a cure, we still have all these families coping with the disease now," said Richard Olsen, director of the health care and aging environments division in NJIT's Center for Architecture and Building Science Research. "We need to fund programs and interventions to help improve the quality of life for people with Alzheimer's disease and to make caregiving easier for their families."

People whose lives have been touched by Alzheimer's, including Emmy award-winning actor David Hyde Pierce of the NBC show "Frasier," testified before a Senate panel that oversees U.S. medical research spending to press the case for more money. Pierce said his father and grandfather died of the disease.

"Half of us in the room already have a time bomb ticking away in our brains,"' said Pierce. "Congress must find a way to defuse this bomb before it destroys us."

The report released by the association predicted a surge in costs associated with Alzheimer's disease in the Medicare health-care program for the elderly and disabled and the Medicaid health-care program for the poor.

The report said the cost to Medicare of treating people with Alzheimer's would reach $49.3 billion in 2010, compared with $31.9 billion in 2000. The report said Alzheimer's costs now account for 14.4 percent of Medicare spending, but will rise to 15.7 percent in 2010.

It also said Medicaid expenditures for nursing-home care for people with Alzheimer's will hit $33 billion in 2010, compared with $18.2 billion in 2000. The group said the increase was just a taste of what's to come if research fails to produce ways to delay the onset of the disease or cure it. Between 2010 and 2050, the number of people with Alzheimer's will increase from an estimated 5.5 million to 14 million, as the post-World War II baby boom generation enters the age of highest risk, the group said.

"Given the projections, there will not be enough facilities to care for all these people," said Olsen, senior author of the book "Homes that Help," which suggests ways in which caregivers can create a safe, supportive environment for those afflicted with Alzheimer's. "Many, or most, will be cared for at home. They will need a home environment that supports care, safety and independence for as long as possible. Caregivers will need to know how they can create a supportive environment and they will need financial assistance to help make these necessary modifications."

Alzheimer's is a progressive disorder stemming from changes in brain tissue that robs people of their ability to think, remember and reason, causes personality changes and leaves people dependent on others for care. Former President Ronald Reagan is among those suffering from the disease.

"We also need novel activity programs to help keep people with dementia active and engaged and feeling good," said Olsen. "Our Media Memory Lane project is one such program with great potential for doing this. We have tested it out in a dementia daycare setting and are now testing it-with a grant from the Fan Fox and Leslie Samuels Foundation at an in-patient Alzheimer's unit in a nursing home, in Brooklyn.

The study, funded by a grant from the Alzheimer's Association, developed, installed and evaluated originally two devices - a musical and video Memory Lane that plays nostalgic music and videos in an easy-to-use push button format. The goal of Memory Lane is to keep people with dementia, who can not operate a standard CD, tape deck or videocassette recorder, engaged and content.

The association called on lawmakers to double the government's investment in research in the next three years to reach an annual funding level of $1 billion. That would require an increase of $200 million in the 2002 fiscal year, beginning Oct. 1, the group said.

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