Alzheimer’s Affects Women More: Both as Patients & Caregivers

Alzheimer’s disease affects women more often than it affects men. A new report shows that two thirds of Alzheimer’s disease patients are women. Plus, unpaid caregivers of Alzheimer’s patients, such as friends and family members, are overwhelmingly women.

According to The Shriver Report: A Woman’s Nation Takes on Alzheimer's, a joint project of Maria Shriver and the Alzheimer’s Association, 60 percent of those unpaid caregivers are women. Sadly, those caregivers are more likely to end up getting Alzheimer’s themselves. How likely? Six times more likely!

The report says that the likelihood of the caregivers to get Alzheimer’s themselves increases “in part [due to] the emotional stress and physical demands of providing care to relatives and loved ones.” So, when these caregivers, who are mostly women, go on to get Alzheimer’s, they will be cared for by more women who will be at a greater risk for Alzheimer’s, and the cycle continues.

Frighteningly, the impact of Alzheimer’s on women will likely continue to increase, as there are around 5.3 million Alzheimer’s patients in the US. With the aging Baby Boomer population, The Shriver Report suggests that there could be as many as 16 million Alzheimer’s patients here in the US by 2050.

So, what can women do to help protect themselves from Alzheimer’s? The Shriver Report does not offer any answers to that. But, Maria Shriver, whose own father has Alzheimer’s, says, “I’m hopeful because I know…there are things we can do today that [may] postpone the development of Alzheimer’s in our own lives… Anything that is good for your heart [such as exercise] is good for your brain. While the [researchers] debate it, just do it.”

What do you think of The Shriver Report? Have you seen the Alzheimer’s report statistics play out in the lives of women in your family? Are you surprised that Alzheimer’s affects women more than men?