The Next 50 Years: An Explosion in the Elderly At-risk Population

The size of the elderly population is growing at an unprecedented rate worldwide and will more than double in the United States alone by the year 2050 when roughly 87 million people will be over the age of 65 (Figure 2).[6] Thanks in part to health education and advances in the treatment of chronic diseases, more and more people are living well into their 80s.[7] The sheer number of baby boomers and their increased life expectancy are the forces driving this explosion.

As age is a known risk factor for developing AD, these changing demographics predict an AD epidemic in the not-too-distant future. In fact, AD prevalence rates double every 4 years of life after age 65.[8] Today, there are an estimated 4.5 million persons in the United States with AD—a number that is expected to triple to 13.2 million by 2050 without major treatment advances (Figure 3).[9]

Figure 2. Projected population of the elderly in the United States: 2000 to 2050.[6]

Figure 3. Projected growth in the number of Americans with AD through the year 2050. Reproduced with permission.[9]
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