As the U.S. population continues to age, experts say rates of Alzheimer’s disease, a neurodegenerative condition that involves memory loss, will rise as well. Already, researchers say that deaths from Alzheimer’s are increasing.
In the latest report on the subject, published by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, scientists found that deaths from Alzheimer’s increased 55% from 1999 to 2014. The data was collected from the National Vital Statistics System, which analyzes death certificate information in the U.S. While people with Alzheimer’s may die of other causes, such as respiratory failure or heart disease, these data capture when Alzheimer’s is an underlying cause for those conditions.
MORE: Alzheimer’s from a New Angle
The report, which tracked deaths at the county level, found that the regions with the highest deaths from Alzheimer’s were in the southeast, midwest and along the west coast.
The report also found an increase in the number of people with Alzheimer’s disease who are dying at home; it rose from 14% to 25% in the period analyzed in the study, which suggests that more families are caring for loved ones with the disease. As a result, more education and support—in the forms of coverage for providing these services—may be needed in coming years.
- How to Help Victims of the Texas School Shooting
- TIME's 100 Most Influential People of 2022
- What the Buffalo Tragedy Has to Do With the Effort to Overturn Roe
- Column: The U.S. Failed Miserably on COVID-19. Canada Shows It Didn't Have to Be That Way
- N.Y. Will Soon Require Businesses to Post Salaries in Job Listings. Here's What Happened When Colorado Did It
- The 46 Most Anticipated Movies of Summer 2022
- ‘We Are in a Moment of Reckoning.’ Amanda Nguyen on Taking the Fight for Sexual Violence Survivors to the U.N.