Diagnosis
Imagine: your doctor knows you have cancer, but chooses not to tell you or your family. Unthinkable, isn’t it? And yet consider this: fewer than half of all seniors diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease or their caregivers are actually told of the diagnosis. I just spent three days in the other Washington at the national Alzheimer’s Association’s Advocacy Forum. I was one of a thousand volunteers. We were loaded up with all kinds of facts and figures to use in conversations with all 12 of our Washington state senators and representatives and their super-smart aides. But that factoid about diagnosis is the one that stuck with me. Really? Really: 55 percent of seniors diagnosed with Alzheimer’s and their caregivers are not told. If the issue was that 55 percent of doctors assume someone with dementia would not remember their diagnosis, so why bother, then surely they would at least tell that person’s family caregiver. But no, in 55 percent of cases, they don’t even do that. I can tell you many dire and alarming facts about Alzheimer’s disease. For example, it is now the most expensive disease in America. This year, we will spend 226 billion dollars on caring for people with Alzheimer’s. That number is expected to soar to 1.1 trillion in 2050. Two thirds of those dollars come from Medicare and Medicaid. The other third comes out of the pockets of overwhelmed families. None of this is sustainable, which is why one thousand of us were on Capitol Hill trying to make the case for [...]