Blog: Relegating Alzheimer's Disease to the History Books

Statement

Last weekend, CNN aired the television premiere of Glen Campbell: I'll Be Me, an extraordinary documentary about a beloved country music star's farewell tour during his fight against Alzheimer's disease. Faced with an inevitable decline, the award-winning singer performed 151 emotional and inspiring sold out concerts over a 15-month period. During the making of the movie, I helped the Campbell family and filmmakers convene a concert in Washington D.C. to share Glen's story with members of Congress. It was a performance that moved many audience members to tears and, our hope, to action.

June is Alzheimer's and Brain Awareness Month, an opportunity to join the global conversation about this devastating disease. Alzheimer's will cost America an estimated $226 billion this year. Worldwide, 47 million people suffer from Alzheimer's and other dementias, more than five million of them in America. Without effective treatments and a cure, this number will grow to 76 million by 2030. As the number of patients dramatically increases with the aging of the Baby Boom generation, Medicare and Medicaid expenditures will skyrocket fivefold by 2050, costing the United States an annual $1.1 trillion. That is more than our entire federal defense budget today.

I lost my mother to Alzheimer's in 1998. My father cared for her every day in our living room for thirteen years, a situation experienced every day by the tens of millions of Americans who care for a loved one with Alzheimer's disease. The year after her death I founded the bipartisan Congressional Taskforce on Alzheimer's to launch a battle against this silent but deadly enemy.

For every $27,000 spent on Alzheimer's disease by Medicare and Medicaid, only $100 funds research at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to increase knowledge about the illness as well as to discover new treatments and preventive strategies. Research is medicine's field of dreams from which we will harvest findings that can produce cures for diseases like Alzheimer's. Yet the NIH budget is in jeopardy. Today, as a result of sequestration and inflation, 20 percent fewer grants can be funded than ten years ago.

That's why in 2011 I authored the National Alzheimer's Project Act, which calls for an aggressive and coordinated national plan to attack Alzheimer's disease and improve care and services. It's the reason Republican Senator Mike Crapo and I passed the Alzheimer's Accountability Act in 2014 to identify what resources are needed to meet the national goal to prevent and treat Alzheimer's by 2025. And it's why Senator Ron Wyden and I included the Independence at Home program in the Affordable Care Act, allowing chronically-ill Medicare beneficiaries to receive better primary care services in their home. If fully implemented, the Independence at Home program has the potential to save Medicare $21 billion over the next decade.

We are as close as we have ever been to finding a cure to this disease. Medications are now helping to improve cognitive functioning and lengthen independence for some individuals. Genetic studies and new imaging techniques are helping scientists identify the people most at risk for the disease so as to intervene earlier with the hope of better outcomes. The NIH has initiated an ambitious effort to map the neural pathways that underlie human brain function. Promising new treatments for this disease are now in clinical trials and strategies including medications and lifestyle changes are being explored to prevent or delay the onset of Alzheimer's.

But much more must be done. Time is of the essence. Failure is not an option. Glen Campbell has been waging an inspiring battle against the disease with music and the love of his family. They are heroes, but even heroes need help. Only with significant funding for innovative research will we succeed in finding a cure so that someday Alzheimer's disease will be found only in the history books.

Source