More than 5.4 million Medicare recipients likely have Alzheimer’s or another type of dementia, according to researchers developing a first-ever national surveillance system for tracking the dreaded neurological conditions.
Why it matters: The lack of a widely accepted monitoring tool has made it hard to get a fix on the prevalence of dementia and to direct spending on care, even as science makes it easier to clinically diagnose symptoms and slow cognitive decline. The new model incorporates about 40 different criteria to verify cases by symptoms like vascular dementia or if a person is using certain Alzheimer’s drugs.
The big picture: Cases of dementia — a general term for loss of cognitive abilities — are expected to triple worldwide by 2050 as the population ages. Alzheimer’s, the most common type of dementia, cost the U.S. economy an estimated $321 billion in 2022.
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State of play: A prevalence model and data hub launched Tuesday are the first step to creating a type of disease census,
