The government figures also show that the disease is already present in one in eight people 65 and older and nearly one in two people over 85.
Also, government figures released in 2006 showed that deaths attributed to Alzheimer's disease increased 33 percent. It was also discovered that between 200,000 and half a million people under age 65 have either early-onset Alzheimer's or another form of dementia.
Expressing his concern over the Alzheimer's prevalence in young people, Dr. Bill Thies, the Alzheimer's Association's medical director told AP, "I think this has been drastically underreported."
Alzheimer's disease is a neurodegenerative disease characterized by progressive cognitive deterioration together with declining activities of daily living and neuropsychiatric symptoms or behavioral changes. It is the most common type of dementia.
The most striking early symptom is loss of short term memory (amnesia), which usually manifests as minor forgetfulness that becomes steadily more pronounced with illness progression, with relative preservation of older memories.
As the disorder progresses, cognitive (intellectual) impairment extends to the domains of language (aphasia), skilled movements (apraxia), recognition (agnosia), and those functions (such as decision-making and planning) closely related to the frontal and temporal lobes of the brain as they become disconnected from the limbic system, reflecting extension of the underlying pathological process.
The new report, the first update of the Alzheimer's toll since 2002, comes in the wake of Congress considering funding for research into Alzheimer's and other diseases. The disease was estimated to afflict 4.5 million people in 2002.
