Losing ground: Alzheimer’s as a leading cause of death

[grow_thumb image=”https://telecareaware.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/Alz-bar-graph.png” thumb_width=”200″ /]This short bar chart (Change in Number of Deaths between 2000 and 2010) tells a story that your Editor did not realize. Alzheimer’s disease currently is the 6th leading cause of death in the United States overall–and where the opposite of progress has been made. Part of this could be better diagnosis, but in large part it is the aging population.

For those innovating health tech, there’s a big job to be done here: not a cure, but to support those with Alzheimer’s and vascular dementias in everyday quality of life (brain fitness, mental stimulation, activities of daily living/ADLs); to aid their caregivers in caring for them, as well as their own quality of life; and geriatric professionals in lengthening time at home and creating stimulating communities, not ‘memory care floors’. Not perhaps as fun as a fitness app, but potentially more rewarding and disruptive to the current distressing model. Graph courtesy of the Alzheimer’s Association (US)