As baby boomers age, the nation faces a crisis in care for an ever-expanding population of dementia patients and over-medication will be a big problem, panelists said at a Senate Aging Committee forum on Wednesday.
There are currently about five million patients with Alzheimer's disease and other forms of dementia, and 11 million family members are caring for these patients, Patricia Grady, PhD, director of the National Institute of Nursing Research, said at the forum.
"We're facing the increasing age of the population," Grady said. "The urgency and the tempo is really increasing. Those in this field have a feeling we're headed in a very fast train toward the end of a cliff."
Over-medication occurs often with dementia patients, according to the panelists, who noted that patients' way of complaining about physical illness is often mistaken by caregivers and family members as aggressiveness or unruly behavior.
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