If doctors can not reduce the growing number of Alzheimer's disease patients, medical cost could reach up to $1 trillion per year by 2050, suggests a Journal of Neurology study.
In 2012, the cost of Alzheimer's care was estimated to be $200 billion in the United States, according to the Alzheimer's Association.
"Back in the olden days, if you look at why Medicare is at the age of 65, because the government predicted that people will not make it to 65-years-old. People are living way passed the age of 65," Grand Strand Regional Medical Center Neurologist Michael McCaffrey said. "That's why we're having this problem because a disease that would not have happened 100 years ago is happening commonly."
More people are being diagnosed with the disease over the last few years than ever before, Dr. McCaffrey added.
"The science that we have now for cardiology, gastroenterology, endocrinology, all of the diseases that usually killed people before now we're able to at least stop the symptoms or reverse them. Neurology is the one field where we haven't been able to reverse this problem."
Alzheimer's is the sixth-leading cause of death in the U.S. and the only cause of death among the top ten that cannot be prevented, cured or even slowed, according to the Alzheimer's Association.
The number of people being diagnosed in our area is growing rapidly, Dr. McCaffrey said.
"Horry County has the highest incidents of strokes and heart attacks in the United States," he said. "So we have a much higher chance of developing Alzheimer's in this county, and with people moving in for retirement, it just raising that bar even higher for Horry County where we're going to have a huge burden in the next ten years."
Dr. McCaffrey believes Horry County is climbing into the top 25 U.S. counties for the number of people diagnosed with the disease.
Home Instead Senior Care nurse and Horry County resident Rachelle Wilkinson has worked with Alzheimer's patients for 20 years.
"More people are being diagnosed with Alzheimer's or Dementia," Wilkinson said. "People are living a lot longer than they did years ago."
Wilkinson works with her patients on a daily basis, but the patient she recalls most often was diagnosed eight years ago because that's when she found out her now 75-year-old mother has the disease.
"You don't expect your loved one or your parent or your grandparents to get to a point in their life to where they don't understand what's going on," she said. "Usually I can tell if it's a good day or days where she can't remember. So I just enjoy the time I have with her."
The disease's warning signs include memory loss, challenges problem solving and difficulty completing familiar tasks.
"They forget where they put their keys or they left something in the oven that is now burning. They forgot that they put it there," Dr. McCaffrey said.
