By OPEN MINDS Circle
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) is preparing for the prevalence of Alzheimer’s disease and related dementias (ADRD) in the United States to double by 2060 from the current estimate of 6 million to 12 million. The increase is attributed to aging of the large Baby Boomer generation born between 1946 and 1964 (about 73 million people qualling 22% of the U.S.population) and to longevity trends that have resulted in more people living to age 85 and beyond when the risk of dementia is highest. The increased incidence of ADRD is projected to create challenges to the national health care system and to pose a major public health issue.
The risk of developing ADRD is currently two times higher among Black older adults, and 1.5 times higher among Hispanic older adults compared to the risk for white Americans. The risk is also higher among people with high blood pressure, diabetes, or depression. Access to timely diagnosis currently varies by a person’s race/ethnicity, with the lowest rates among Native Americans and Asian Americans.
HHS released information about its preparations in “National Plan To Address Alzheimer’s Disease: 2022 Update.” The report was developed by the HHS Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation (ASPE). The National Alzheimer’s Project Act, which was signed into law in 2011, established the Advisory Council on Alzheimer’s Research, Care, and Services and charged the HHS Secretary with creating and annually updating a National Plan to Address Alzheimer’s Disease. This report highlights accomplishments over the past 10 years, as well as achievements that took place during 2022. The update continues to advance actions to reduce risk factors for ADRD, which was added as a new goal in 2021. The plan sets out six strategies.
Prevent and treat ADRD by 2025: This strategy is focused on research to understand the causes of, treatments for, and prevention of ADRD. HHS intends to prioritize and accelerate the pace of scientific research and to ensure that evidence-based solutions are quickly translated into practice and brought to scale.
Enhance care quality and efficiency: This strategy is focused on training and strengthening the workforce of dementia-capable professionals, from direct care workers to community health and social workers to primary care professionals and specialists, who will be needed to care for people with ADRD. The goal is that care will be culturally and linguistically appropriate, and will address the individual’s physical, cognitive, emotional, and behavioral symptoms of ADRD and any co-occurring chronic conditions. High quality and efficient care depend on smooth transitions between care settings, coordination among health care and long-term services and supports (LTSS) professionals, and dementia-capable health care and LTSS.
Expand supports for people with ADRD and their families: This strategy is focused on ensuring that people with ADRD and their families/caregivers have tools they need, help planning for future needs, and help ensuring that safety and dignity are maintained. Educational materials should be culturally and linguistically appropriate. Opportunities exist for using health information technology to support people with ADRD and their caregivers through reminders, communications, and monitoring.
Enhance public awareness and engagement: This strategy is focused on reducing public misperceptions about diagnosis and clinical management of ADRD, with the goal of reducing stigma and increasing public interest in addressing challenges faced by people with ADRD and their families. Key stakeholders include caregivers, employers whose employees request flexibility to care for a loved one with the disease, groups whose members are caregivers, and broader aging organizations.
Improve data to track progress: This strategy is focused on collecting data to track the burden on ADRD on individual and population health to identify and monitor trends in risk factors associated with ADRD and assist with understanding health disparities. HHS intends to expand and enhance data infrastructure and make data easily accessible to federal agencies and other researchers.
Accelerate action to promote healthy aging and reduce risk factors for ADRD: This strategy is focused on accelerating federal support for research on ADRD risk factors and strengthening the science-to-service infrastructure. The goal is to rapidly share information about risk factors, interventions to reduce the burden of risk factors, and related health promotion activities. Such information will be shared with health care professionals, community-based provider organizations, and public health networks. Future efforts to reduce the burden of risk factors for ADRD will focus on actions communities could take and the system-level investments needed to facilitate risk reduction and support healthy aging.
The National Plan to Address Alzheimer’s Disease is developed with input from agencies across HHS and other federal departments as well as recommendations from the Advisory Council. The council membership includes health care professionals, researchers, caregivers, individuals living with dementia, state representatives, and advocates.
For more information, contact: U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, 200 Independence Avenue Southwest, Washington, District of Columbia 20201; 202-690-6343; Email: media@hhs.gov; Website: https://www.hhs.gov/aging/napa/index.html