Report Foresees Dramatic Rise in Alzheimer’s Disease Over Next Two Decades in California

The Alzheimer’s Association predicts the number of people with Alzheimer’s disease in California could double to more than 1.1 million by the year 2030.  In a California Healthline Special Report by Deirdre Kennedy, clinical and government leaders discussed the disease.

The Special Report includes comments from:

• Debra Cherry, executive vice president of the California Southland Chapter of the Alzheimer’s Association;
• Linda Hewett, a senior psychologist at UC-San Francisco’s Alzheimer’s and Memory Center in Fresno;
• Patrick Fox, co-director of the Institute for Health & Aging at UCSF’s School of Nursing; and
• Linda Rudolph, deputy director of the state’s Center for Chronic Disease Prevention.

An Alzheimer’s Association report predicts the disease will triple among Hispanics and Asians over the next 20 years — much faster growth than among whites and blacks.

“The most surprising finding to me was the rapid increase in the number of Latino folks projected to have Alzheimer’s disease, especially looking out at the far end, like at 2040,” Fox said.

“Because we generally think of the Latino population being more toward younger ages, the numbers that we came up with were essentially being driven by the changing age structure of those population groups going forward,” Fox said (Kennedy, California Healthline, 3/31).