According to the Alzheimer's Association 2012 Alzheimer's Disease Facts and Figures report released this month, Alzheimer's Disease and other dementias will cost the United States an estimated $200 Billion this year alone. 

"Clearly, this is an unsustainable circumstance; we can't spend $1.1 Trillion of current dollars in 2050 and expect our economy to absorb that," William Thies PhD, Chief Medical and Scientific Officer of the Alzheimer's Association told Medscape Medical News. 

Average per person Medicare payments for an older person with Alzheimer's or other dementias are nearly 3 times higher than for an older person without these conditions. Medicaid payments are 19 times higher. These costs will only continue to soar in the coming years given the projected rapidly escalating prevalence of Alzheimer's disease as the baby boomers age.

Unless something is done, the care costs of Alzheimer's and other dementias will soar from $200 billion this year to a projected $1.1 trillion (in today's dollars) by 2050. This dramatic rise includes a 500 percent increase in combined Medicare and Medicaid spending.

Alzheimer's Association Releases

The report has a special section that focuses on the estimated 800,000 individuals who have AD and live alone. Most of these people, according to the report, are older women. 

Alzheimer's is the sixth-leading cause of death in the country and the only cause of death among the top 10 in the United States that cannot be prevented, cured or even slowed. Based on final mortality data from 2000-2008, death rates have declined for most major diseases-heart disease (-13 percent), breast cancer (-3 percent), prostate cancer (-8 percent), stroke (-20 percent) and HIV/AIDS (-29)-while deaths from Alzheimer's disease have risen 66 percent during the same period.