New tracker finds 57,000 likely dementia cases in Colorado
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Nearly 57,000 Medicare recipients in Colorado likely have Alzheimer's or another form of dementia, according to researchers developing the first-ever national surveillance system. In Denver County, that estimate is about 6,500.
Why it matters: The lack of a widely accepted monitoring tool has made it hard to direct funding toward dementia care, even as scientific advances make it easier to diagnose symptoms and slow cognitive decline.
What they're saying: The new data hub offers the most comprehensive picture yet of dementia diagnoses among Medicare recipients, health experts tell Axios.
- Researchers at the University of Chicago, George Washington University and KPMG published the model.
By the numbers: In Colorado, 6% of Medicare recipients likely have dementia, according to the data hub — lower than the national rate of 7.1%.
- Phillips County in northeastern Colorado has the highest share of Medicare recipients likely to have dementia, at 9.6%.
Driving the news: At Colorado State University, a new drug tested on mice with cognitive issues similar to Alzheimer's disease showed improvements in memory skills.
- The findings were published in July in the Journal of Neuroinflammation.
What they're saying: "A very important finding that we saw in this study is that you can reverse some cognitive decline," Prashant Nagpa, one of the researchers, said in a statement.
- "We are hoping to take this to human clinical trials next year," he added.
The big picture: Cases of dementia — a broad term for loss of cognitive abilities — are expected to triple worldwide by 2050 as the population ages.
- Nationally, more than 5.4 million Medicare recipients are likely affected with some form of dementia.
- Alzheimer's, the most common type of dementia, cost the U.S. economy an estimated $321 billion in 2022, per the most recent federal data available.