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Increasing Alzheimer's Population Demands More Nurses
Increasing Alzheimer's Population Demands More Nurses
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The first wave of baby boomers is now in its mid-sixties, the threshold age for the greatest risk of developing Alzheimer's disease. Approximately 5.2 million Americans currently live with this fatal, presently incurable, degenerative neurological disease. It is estimated that based on our progress with combating the disease combined with our huge population of elderly people, this number could quadruple to 16 million afflicted Americans by 2050. Alzheimer's patients require much care that families are often unable to provide for aging parents and grandparents.
Nurses are the crucial foundation of all patient care, but are especially important in the treatment of Alzheimer's. It takes a specially skilled nurse to work with sick, elderly people suffering from dementia. These nurses are increasingly in demand as baby boomers. Yet there is a large and ever increasing patient to nurse ratio as our largest age demographic retires from the workforce and needs more healthcare. We must counter-act the nursing shortage in order to address the needs of the escalating Alzheimer population.
Studies report that approximately 70 percent of nursing home residents have some degree of cognitive impairment and 27 percent of older adults living in the community are cognitively impaired. In the next year, almost a half million people will develop Alzheimer's disease. The Alzheimer's Association, amongst other groups, continues to urge lawmakers and political leaders to support recruitment, education, and training programs for nurses.
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