Alzheimer's in 2026: What the Numbers Say, and Why We're Walking on November 7

Hello, World!

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A plain look at who Alzheimer's reaches, what it asks of the families around it, and where the research stands, written ahead of the Walk to End Alzheimer's in Philadelphia on November 7.

At Gilgal we serve and support people living with neurological diseases, and Alzheimer's is the one we hear about most often. We see what it does to people who are deeply loved, and to the spouses, sons and daughters who rearrange their lives to keep them safe at home. On Saturday, November 7, our team is walking in the Alzheimer's Association Walk to End Alzheimer's in Philadelphia. We want to see a cure, and we'd love for you to walk with us.

Before the walk, we wanted to put the facts in one place. Many people know someone with Alzheimer's without knowing much about the disease itself, who it reaches, or what it costs. This is the short version, drawn from the Alzheimer's Association's 2026 Facts and Figures report and other sources listed at the end.

What Alzheimer's is

Alzheimer's is a brain disease that gradually damages and kills nerve cells. Two changes mark it: clumps of a protein fragment called beta-amyloid building up between brain cells, and twisted strands of a protein called tau building up inside them.¹ It is the most common cause of dementia, accounting for an estimated 60% to 80% of cases. Dementia is the broader term for a loss of memory, language and judgment serious enough to interfere with daily life.

The disease starts long before anyone notices. Brain changes can begin 20 years or more before memory loss appears.¹ People 65 and older live an average of four to eight years after a diagnosis, and some live as long as 20.

Alzheimer's in numbers, 2026

7.4MAmericans 65 and older living with Alzheimer's

1 in 9people 65 and older has Alzheimer's (11%)

282,100Pennsylvanians 65 and older living with Alzheimer's

1 in 3older adults dies with Alzheimer's or another dementia

Sources: Alzheimer's Association, 2026 Facts and Figures and its Pennsylvania state sheet. The Pennsylvania count is the Association's most recent state estimate, made for 2020.

According to the Alzheimer's Association, Alzheimer's and other dementias kill more people than breast cancer and prostate cancer combined.² Deaths from Alzheimer's more than doubled between 2000 and 2024, during the same years that deaths from heart disease went down. In Pennsylvania it is the sixth-leading cause of death, with 3,832 deaths recorded in 2024.³

Who it reaches

Age is the biggest risk factor, and the climb after 75 is steep.

Share of each age group living with Alzheimer's

Ages 65 to 74

5.2%

Ages 75 to 84

13.8%

Ages 85 and older

35.8%

Source: Alzheimer's Association, 2026 Alzheimer's Disease Facts and Figures, Figure 5.

More women than men live with Alzheimer's. Almost two-thirds of Americans with Alzheimer's are women. At age 45, a woman's lifetime risk is about 1 in 5. A man's is about 1 in 10.²

Race matters too. Older Black Americans are about twice as likely as older White Americans to have Alzheimer's or another dementia. Older Hispanic Americans are about one and a half times as likely as older White Americans.² The Alzheimer's Association points to conditions that raise dementia risk, such as high blood pressure and diabetes, and to social conditions like income, education and the neighborhoods people live in. Some studies also show that dementia goes undiagnosed more often in Black and Hispanic older adults, which means fewer families get an early answer and fewer get early help.¹

Likelihood of Alzheimer's or another dementia, compared with older White Americans

Older White Americans

1×

Older Hispanic Americans

about 1.5×

Older Black Americans

about 2×

Source: Alzheimer's Association, 2026 Alzheimer's Disease Facts and Figures.

Getting care is its own hurdle. In a 2021 national survey by the Alzheimer's Association, half of Black Americans said they had experienced discrimination when seeking health care, and half or more of non-White family caregivers said they had faced it while navigating care for the person they look after.⁴ Only 53% of Black Americans said they trust that a future cure would be shared equally regardless of race.

Have you ever sat in an appointment with someone you love and felt that nobody in the room was really listening?

Money and circumstance

Income and circumstance shape risk long before any diagnosis. Lower socioeconomic status is linked to less physical activity and higher rates of diabetes, high blood pressure and smoking, all of which raise dementia risk.¹ The 2024 Lancet Commission named 14 risk factors that can be changed, including hearing loss, high blood pressure, diabetes, depression, physical inactivity, social isolation and air pollution. Together they may account for nearly half of dementia cases worldwide.

Those factors don't fall evenly. In one large U.S. study, changeable risk factors accounted for 33% of dementia cases among Latino participants and 28% among African American participants, compared with 22% among White participants.¹

Then there is the bill. Health and long-term care for people living with dementia will cost an estimated $409 billion in 2026. Medicare and Medicaid are expected to cover $263 billion of that. Families will pay about $103 billion out of their own pockets.²

Lifetime cost of care for one person with dementia: $405,262

70%

30%

Paid by families, through unpaid care and out-of-pocket costs Paid by Medicare, Medicaid and other sources

Source: Alzheimer's Association, 2026 Facts and Figures. Lifetime cost estimated in 2024 dollars.

Many of the families paying that 70% are not wealthy. Forty-one percent of dementia caregivers have a household income of $50,000 or less.² Some Pennsylvania family caregivers can be paid for the care they give, and our post Can You Get Paid to Care for a Parent in PA? explains who qualifies.

The people doing the caring

Most dementia care in this country is unpaid. Eighty-three percent of the help older adults receive comes from family members, friends and other unpaid caregivers. Nearly 13 million Americans provide unpaid care for someone living with dementia, and in 2025 they gave more than 19 billion hours of it, valued at $446 billion.²

About two-thirds of these family caregivers are women, and more than a third are daughters. Two-thirds live with the person they care for. About a quarter are also raising at least one child. Thirty percent are 65 or older themselves. Some are husbands and wives in their seventies handling the lifting, the night checks and the medication schedule.

Fifty-nine percent of dementia family caregivers describe their emotional stress as high or very high.² Here in Pennsylvania, about 472,000 family caregivers gave 835 million hours of unpaid care, and the toll shows up in their own health.³

Pennsylvania's dementia family caregivers

Living with a chronic health condition

76.6%

Living with depression

32.5%

In poor physical health

16.0%

Source: Alzheimer's Association, 2026 Facts and Figures, Pennsylvania state sheet. Unpaid care in Pennsylvania is valued at $17.2 billion.

Paid help is stretched as well. Between 2024 and 2034, the country will need nearly 800,000 more direct care workers to keep up with dementia care, the largest worker gap of any single occupation. Turnover among paid caregivers in home care runs about 79% a year.² We wrote more about this in The Caregiver Shortage. It is why consistency and training matter so much when a family brings in paid help.

Licensed home care agencies, including Gilgal and others across the region, hire, train and supervise the direct care workers they send into homes. Pennsylvania licenses home care agencies and home care registries separately, and Gilgal holds both licenses. Through our Gilgal Care Team, we send our own trained direct care workers. Through our registry, we connect families with independent caregivers they hire directly. Our post on agency vs. registry explains the difference, and Verify Your Care shows how to check that any agency you are considering is licensed. If you aren't sure it's time, 10 Signs It's Time to Consider Home Care is a good place to start.

Family caregivers do most of this work, and they shouldn't have to do all of it. A direct care worker for a few set hours each week gives a husband, wife, son or daughter time to sleep, keep their own appointments, and go back to being family for part of the day. Medicare, Medicaid waivers and long-term care insurance can each cover part of the picture, and home care fills in alongside them. Our guide to paying for home care in Pennsylvania walks through each one, and Respite Care in Pennsylvania covers how to set up a regular break.

Where the research stands

There is no cure for Alzheimer's yet, and there is no proven way to prevent it.¹ The last few years have still brought real progress. The Alzheimer's Association, which runs the walk, started the U.S. POINTER study below. If you want to help move the next finding along, join our team on November 7.

Recent milestones

1. 2023The FDA approves lecanemab (Leqembi), a drug that clears amyloid from the brain and slows the disease in people with early symptoms.
2. 2024A second drug of this kind, donanemab (Kisunla), is approved. One study estimates the two drugs may extend a person's independence with tasks like managing money and medications by about 10 and 13 months.
3. 2025The FDA clears the first blood tests to help detect Alzheimer's, one for specialists and one for primary care doctors.
4. 2025The U.S. POINTER study, with more than 2,100 participants across the country, finds that lifestyle programs built on exercise, healthy eating, mental activity, social time and health monitoring improved thinking skills in older adults at risk. The more structured program helped most.

Source: Alzheimer's Association, 2026 Alzheimer's Disease Facts and Figures.

Neither drug is a cure, neither works for everyone, and both are approved only for people with mild symptoms.¹ That makes early diagnosis matter more than it used to. One recent study estimates that only about 8% of older Americans living with mild cognitive impairment get a diagnosis, even though that early stage is when treatment and planning can do the most. At the start of 2025, 138 drugs were being tested in 182 clinical trials, and nearly three-quarters of them aim at the disease itself rather than its symptoms. Research like this needs steady funding, and a donation to our walk page supports the Alzheimer's Association's care, support and research.

Most people want help keeping their brains healthy and aren't getting it. In the Alzheimer's Association's 2026 survey, 99% of adults 40 and older said brain health matters at least as much as physical health. Only 9% said they know a lot about how to protect it, and only 14% have talked about it with their doctor.² If you have an annual visit coming up, it's a fair question to ask. The Association's 10 early signs of Alzheimer's are worth knowing too.

One more detail from the research stays with us. Even in the last stage of Alzheimer's, when speaking has become hard, it is common for people to have short stretches of clarity, when they speak coherently and seem like themselves again.¹

Walk with us on November 7

Our team, Gilgal Home Care, is walking in the Alzheimer's Association Walk to End Alzheimer's in Philadelphia on Saturday, November 7. Every dollar raised goes to Alzheimer's care, support and research. We want to find a cure, and this walk is one step closer to it.

You can join us on the day, make a donation, or share this post with someone who would want to know.

Join our team Make a donation

Caring for someone with dementia right now? The Alzheimer's Association runs a free helpline around the clock at 800-272-3900. If you'd like to talk through help at home in Montgomery, Chester, Delaware, Bucks or Philadelphia counties, book a free 15-minute call with us.

Sources

1. Alzheimer's Association. 2026 Alzheimer's Disease Facts and Figures. Alzheimer's & Dementia 2026;22. The report cites the 2024 Lancet Commission on dementia prevention for the 14 risk factors.
2. Alzheimer's Association. Alzheimer's Disease Facts and Figures, 2026 summary, including the special report Brain Health in America.
3. Alzheimer's Association. 2026 Facts and Figures: Pennsylvania.
4. Alzheimer's Association. Race, Ethnicity and Alzheimer's in America, 2021 special report, March 2, 2021.