It’s been several years in the making, but the nation finally is on its way to creating a plan to combat Alzheimer’s disease. The new Office will coordinate research, treatment and caregiving.

President Obama signed the National Alzheimer’s Project Act, which will focus on treatment development and diagnosis, and coordination of care. It puts Alzheimer’s disease on the same footing as AIDs and cancer.

Maine Senator Susan Collins is a co-sponsor of the act. While the act doesn’t authorize more money, it’s likely that there will be a call for more spending on research. “We spend one penny on research for every dollar the federal government spends on care for patients with Alzheimer’s,” Senator Collins said. “That just doesn’t make sense. We really need to step up the investment.”

There are no Alzheimer’s survivors to march and raise awareness and wear purple ribbons, but there are about 5.3 million people living with Alzheimer’s in the United States, and that number is expected to trip by 2050. Care costs to Medicare and Medicaid last year were about $170 billion. It is the sixth leading cause of death in the US.

The Act had its genesis in July 2007, when Speaker Newt Gingrich and Robert Egge, now the Alzheimer’s Association’s VP of Public Policy,  published an article called “Developing a National Alzheimer’s Strategy Equal to the Epidemic” in Alzheimer’s and Dementia: the Journal of the Alzheimer’s Association.

Two years later, in October of 2009, Barack Obama said, “We must continue the urgent work of giving substance to hope for all who dream of a day when words like “terminal” and “incurable” are finally retired from our vocabulary. Until then, we must strive to ease the burden of every individual struggling to recall a spouse’s name; every parent unable to recognize a child’s face; and every family member or friend who brings them comfort and care.”  

On January 4, he took the nation forward in seeking a cure.

Official Summary

2/24/10 – Introduced. National Alzheimer’s Project Act – Establishes in the Office of the Secretary of Health and Humans Services (HHS) the Office of the National Alzheimer’s Project to:

  1. Accelerate the development of treatment that would prevent, halt, or reverse the course of Alzheimer’s;
  2. Create and maintain an integrated national plan to overcome Alzheimer’s;
  3. Help to coordinate the health care and treatment of citizens with Alzheimer’s;
  4. Ensure the inclusion of ethnic and racial populations that are at higher risk of Alzheimer’s or that are least likely to receive are in clinical, research, and service efforts with the purpose of decreasing health disparities;
  5. Coordinate with international bodies to integrate and inform the fight against Alzheimer’s globally; and
  6. Provide information and coordination of Alzheimer’s research and services across all a federal agencies. Sets forth the duties of the Director of the Office, including to use discretionary authority to evaluate all federal programs concerning Alzheimer’s. Establishes in the Office an Advisory Council on Alzheimer’s Research and Treatment.