Provided by ComForcare
November is National Alzheimer’s Disease Awareness Month, an observance designed to promote awareness of a rapidly-growing health crisis.
According to the “Alzheimer’s Association’s Alzheimer’s Disease Facts & Figures 2010,” there are currently as many as 5.3 million people living with Alzheimer’s today in the United States. It is estimated that in 2030 close to 8 billion people aged 65 and over will have Alzheimer’s and by 2050, there will as many as 16 billion people aged 65 and over with the disease.
California First Lady and Alzheimer’s activist, Maria Shriver, works to raise awareness of the disease. Her father was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease in 2003. In October, “The Shriver Report: A Woman’s Nation Takes on Alzheimer’s,” was released. The second in a series of reports on Alzheimer’s, this study focuses on the disease’s disproportionate impact on women.
The report, conducted in collaboration with the Alzheimer’s Association, shows that 10 million American women are touched by Alzheimer’s disease and other dementias.
Two-thirds of the more than five million people currently diagnosed with Alzheimer’s, are women (attributed to the longer longevity of women).
A high proportion of people diagnosed with Alzheimer’s need some level of care and often this care is provided by family caregivers who are primarily women. This care might start with helping with activities such as meal preparation or shopping and grow to full personal care and around-the-clock supervision as the disease progresses.
“The Shriver Report: A Woman’s Nation Takes on Alzheimers” shows that 6.7 million women represent 60 percent of the family caregivers of those living with the disease. Many of these women also work full time and are raising children.