New US Dementia Cases Projected To Reach 1M Annually By 2060
Nursing home staffing, geriatrician supply and Medicaid funding are all moving in the wrong direction as the diagnosis rate climbs.
By James Anderson ·
New dementia diagnoses among US adults are projected to double to 1 million per year by 2060, up from 514,000 in 2020, according to a 2024 study in JAMA Neurology. A separate JAMA Neurology analysis projects global incidence rising from 11.4 million cases in 2023 to 24.7 million by 2050.
The increase tracks a demographic shift. Life expectancy has risen, pushing more people into the age brackets where dementia is most common. The US Hispanic population nearly doubled between 2000 and 2024, and that group is 1.5 times as likely to develop dementia as white people, according to the Alzheimer's Association.
"Even if you reduce the risk of dementia, just the sheer number of adults who are entering the ages where dementia is most common will increase the number of people living with and who develop dementia," said Jordan Weiss, an assistant professor at the Optimal Aging Institute at NYU Langone.
The care workforce is not keeping pace. The Center for American Progress projects demand for nursing assistants rising 48% and home health aides 42% between 2020 and 2035. Median pay in May 2025 was under $19 an hour for nursing assistants in assisted living and home health care, and $17 an hour for home health aides, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. A 2024 report from the American Health Care Association found nearly all nursing homes struggled to recruit staff, two-thirds cited a shortage of qualified candidates, and about half limited new admissions.
"The retention rate of those direct care workers is really, really low because it's really difficult work. You can't replace that with AI, and they are not getting adequately reimbursed," said Regina Shih, a professor of epidemiology at Emory University who studies dementia and caregiving.
The supply of geriatricians is also shrinking. The count fell from 10,270 in 2000 to 7,413 in 2022, according to a JAMA report. Weiss linked the decline in part to compensation and said residency interest "hasn't necessarily kept pace with some other fields." Medicaid pays for more than half of US long-term care spending, and the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, signed in 2025, includes close to $1 trillion in Medicaid cuts over 10 years. In 2025, almost half of states reported offering incentive payments to recruit or retain Medicaid home care workers, according to a KFF survey.
The FDA has approved Kisunla and Leqembi, which can modestly slow cognitive decline in some early Alzheimer's patients, along with blood tests that help diagnose the disease. Weiss said cardiovascular health and physical activity can reduce risk, and added: "Scientific breakthroughs matter, but so does building a healthcare system and infrastructure capable of delivering the care that people already need."}
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Source: The Guardian
