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| For more information contact: John D. Law For immediate release Report Released on Dementia in West Virginia According to a new report released by the West Virginia Bureau for Public Health, entitled Dementia: The Growing Crisis in West Virginia, Alzheimer's disease and other dementia are an increasing problem in the state. The report examines the many different forms of irreversible dementia. Alzheimer's disease is by far the most frequently diagnosed form of dementia, accounting for 50 to 70 percent of all cases. Vascular dementia, often resulting from strokes, is the second most common type. As many as 7 million people in the United States today suffer from some sort of dementia. African-Americans and Hispanics are more likely to suffer from dementia than non-Hispanic whites. The report estimates that 40,000 people in West Virginia had Alzheimer's disease in 2000. This figure is expected to rise to 50,000 by 2005. The costs of treating dementia are enormous. Alzheimer's disease alone costs about $100 billion dollars a year to treat. Because dementia is primarily a disease of the elderly, Medicare bears most of the burden. The number of Medicare beneficiaries with Alzheimer's disease increased by 250 percent in the 1990's. Medicare expenditures for Alzheimer's disease are expected to increase by 55 percent over the next 10 years, while the costs to Medicaid are projected to increase by 80 percent. The report also examines hospitalization rates for discharges having a diagnosis of dementia. West Virginia's total rate (per 10,000 population) of hospitalizations with any type of dementia diagnosis (either principal or secondary) in 2001 was 28 percent higher than the comparable U.S. rate. The rate for those with an Alzheimer's disease diagnosis was 68 percent higher than the national rate. The same year, approximately $7,750,000 was billed for hospitalizations with a principal diagnosis of dementia, $3.3 million for Alzheimer's disease and $4.4 million for other dementia. West Virginians are also more likely to die from dementia than the rest of the nation. In 2001, the state rate of dementia deaths was 10 percent higher than that in the United States as a whole. – 30 – |