Editorial: Slowing Alzheimer’s

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Frank Broyles came home from his job as University of Arkansas athletic director one day to find his wife, Barbara, crying.

“She tried to tell me through her tears that she didn’t know how to balance the checkbook anymore, and she had done it for 50-some odd years,” Broyles told a Congressional panel this month. The incident was one of the first signs that his wife was developing Alzheimer’s Disease.

That’s similar to the story Barbara Thomason of Salisbury told in Sunday’s Post — finding that she couldn’t thread her new sewing machine after a lifetime of sewing. Forgetting names. Searching for words. Thomason had watched her mother descend into the dark, frightening valley of Alzheimer’s 20 years ago, and she was afraid she was on the same path.

Thomason’s fears were unfounded, according to test results she received last week. But virtually everyone past the age of 40 has had an incident — a forgotten name, a momentary disorientation — that made them wonder: Is this a sign of Alzheimer’s?

For 4.5 million Americans, the answer has been “yes,” and experts predict aging baby boomers will raise the number as high as 16 million by 2050, with huge human and financial costs. Medicare beneficiaries with Alzheimer’s account for 34 percent of Medicare spending, but they make up only 12.8 percent of the population over age 65. The average lifetime cost of care for a person with Alzheimer’s is $170,000.

Enter the Ronald Reagan Alzheimer’s Breakthrough Act, first introduced after the former president’s death last summer. It would double the funding from $700 million to $1.4 billion for Alzheimer’s research. (By comparison, the country spends more than $5.7 billion on cancer research and $2.9 billion in HIV and AIDS research). Among other things, the act would also increase funding for the National Family Caregiver Support Program from $153 million to $250 million.

The need for a breakthrough in treatment is urgent. Americans are living longer. Successful Alzheimer’s research could ensure that more of those years are productive and happy — rather than lost and confused.

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