Danger Ahead, Will Robinson! New Epidemic Reaching Epic Proportions

If you know where this comes from ("Lost in Space," remember?), this epidemic applies to you.

Listen all you Baby Boomers out there.  The next epidemic won't be measles or mumps.  Experts are predicting it will be Alzheimer's.

That's because the disease primarily hits people in their 70's and older, and we're getting there.  A story at USA Today notes that by 2050, the affliction rate will have tripled, striking 1 in 85 people by this date.  (Of course, how many of us will be alive then?!)

But it's something to think about, for our children.  Though doctors know how it develops, and now may be able to definitively diagnose it when we're still alive, no one knows why.   The symptoms are more than forgetting your keys, which I do all the time, or forgetting a word, like fork, which I also do.  Amnesia, the inability to communicate, difficulty with tasks, confusion about time or place, are all part of the disease.

It's important to remember that Alzheimer's is not a normal part of aging, and it is separate from dementia.





http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2013/02/06/alzheimers-dementia-epidemic-numbers-to-triple/1881151/


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