Obama pledges help for Alzheimer's research

WASHINGTON -- The Obama administration declared Alzheimer's "one of the most feared health conditions" yesterday as it issued a draft of a new national strategy to fight the ominous rise in the mind-destroying disease.

More than 5 million Americans already have Alzheimer's or similar dementias, a toll expected to reach up to 16 million by 2050 -- along with skyrocketing medical and nursing home bills -- because the population is aging so rapidly.

The government's top goal: Find some effective ways to treat Alzheimer's by 2025. Today's treatments only temporarily ease symptoms. Scientists know that Alzheimer's brews for years before symptoms appear, but work to find better medications or at least stall the disease's emergence has been frustratingly slow.

The draft of the first National Alzheimer's Plan makes clear that overwhelmed families need help right away to care for affected loved ones.

Moreover, as many as half of today's Alzheimer's sufferers haven't been formally diagnosed, and the draft in part blames stigma and misinformation.

The National Institutes of Health spends about $450 million a year on dementia research. Earlier this month, the Obama administration announced it would add an extra $50 million to that tab this year, and seek $80 million more to spend on research in 2013.

It plans to spend about $26 million on some of the plan's other provisions.

For comparison, the government spends nearly $3 billion on AIDS research; about 1.1 million Americans are living with the AIDS virus.