Researchers find Alzheimer's Threat Persistent Regardless of Age; Average Survival Confirmed as 6 Years

According to an article published in McKnight's Long Term Care News, first-ever studies are bringing new revelations about Alzheimer's Disease.  The studies were released as the Alzheimer's Association hosts its 2018 International Conference in Chicago. Among the findings: Dementia survival time is short, regardless of the age at onset.

Aiming to better understand survival times of those diagnosed at a relatively young age, Amsterdam researchers poured over data for some 4,500 early-onset dementia patients in one memory clinic. They found that median survival time, across all age groups, was six years, hardly different from those older than 65.

These findings suggest that, despite all efforts and despite being younger and perhaps physically "‘healthier" than older people, survival time in people with young-onset dementia is not greater and  has not improved since 2000

Another study, of dementia data from 11 countries tied to more than 4,100 ages 95-110 found that prevalence of the disease increased with age in all societies.  On the other hand, though, the risk for dementia and cognitive impairment varied “significantly” from country to country, “suggesting cultural and lifestyle factors play a role in remaining physically and cognitively health with age.  Those with higher levels of education, for one, expressed a lower prevalence of dementia than those with fewer years of education.

In yet another study, researchers from the University of California-San Francisco announced this week that the dementia rate of lesbian, gay and bisexual older adults was about 7.4%, compared to about 10% for the general population, according to study results. It was the first dementia prevalence data from a large population of LGB older adults and examined data from some 3,700 such individuals over age 60. 

The association also announced on Sunday that it is establishing the first-ever Dementia Care Provider Roundtable, as a means to gather thought leaders from across the U.S. to find ways to better treat the disease.  The group, which consists of key players in the skilled nursing and assisted living fields, Genesis HealthCare and HCR Manor Care among them, will meet for the first time Thursday, the last day of the five-day conference.

What Happens When We All Live to 100?

Gregg Easterbrook, contributing editor of The Atlantic has penned an excellent and thought-provoking article in What Happens When We All Live to 100? (the pictures accompanying the article are equally excellent):  

For millennia, if not for eons—anthropology continuously pushes backward the time of human origin—life expectancy was short. The few people who grew old were assumed, because of their years, to have won the favor of the gods. The typical person was fortunate to reach 40.

Beginning in the 19th century, that slowly changed. Since 1840, life expectancy at birth has risen about three months with each passing year. In 1840, life expectancy at birth in Sweden, a much-studied nation owing to its record-keeping, was 45 years for women; today it’s 83 years. The United States displays roughly the same trend. When the 20th century began, life expectancy at birth in America was 47 years; now newborns are expected to live 79 years. If about three months continue to be added with each passing year, by the middle of this century, American life expectancy at birth will be 88 years. By the end of the century, it will be 100 years. 

Viewed globally, the lengthening of life spans seems independent of any single, specific event. It didn’t accelerate much as antibiotics and vaccines became common. Nor did it retreat much during wars or disease outbreaks. A graph of global life expectancy over time looks like an escalator rising smoothly. The trend holds, in most years, in individual nations rich and poor; the whole world is riding the escalator.

Projections of ever-longer life spans assume no incredible medical discoveries—rather, that the escalator ride simply continues. If anti-aging drugs or genetic therapies are found, the climb could accelerate. Centenarians may become the norm, rather than rarities who generate a headline in the local newspaper.

Pie in the sky? On a verdant hillside in Marin County, California—home to hipsters and towering redwoods, the place to which the Golden Gate Bridge leads—sits the Buck Institute, the first private, independent research facility dedicated to extending the human life span. Since 1999, scientists and postdocs there have studied ways to make organisms live much longer, and with better health, than they naturally would. Already, the institute’s researchers have quintupled the life span of laboratory worms. Most Americans have never heard of the Buck Institute, but someday this place may be very well known.

To read the rest of this fantastic article, go here.