Victoria Garza "Costs for Dementia Care Far Exceeding Other Diseases, Study Says."

This study compared the three most common long lasting causes of death: cancer, heart disease, and dementia. As the article pointed out, cancer and heart disease often require extensive and expensive drugs, surgeries, and hospitalizations. Dementia, on the other hand, has no longterm effective treatment. Yet, when researchers were asked which of the three diseases cost the most money for patients and their families, dementia trumped the other two. The main causes for these high expenses is the need for a caregiver to give constant supervision to the patient and the fact that these conditions aren't covered by Medicare. 

Dementia is the decline of mental ability over time, including a decrease in memory, judgement, and thought. I personally think this is one of the most difficult diseases for both the patient and the family because you can essentially lose the person while they are still alive. On top of the emotional and personal struggle of the disease, individuals have to deal with a pretty hefty bill. Medicare doesn't cover a lot of the expenses required for the supervision of the patients. I found it interesting that despite the fact that there are no effective treatments for dementia, expenses were higher than those for cancer and heart disease, which actually have expesnive forms of treatments. It was sad to read about all the difficulties families were having paying for the treatment. I hope that they will soon find a way to slow down the deterioration caused by dementia or give more financial help to patients and their families. This relates to US history because it shows an example of economic struggles faced by citizens as well as a disease that is widespread throughout the US, similar to the epidemics we have faced throughout history. 

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/27/health/costs-for-dementia-care-far-exceeding-other-diseases-study-finds.html?ref=us