Innovative and collaborative care models in dementia

Alzheimer's Disease (AD) is the most prevalent cause of neurodegenerative disease accounting for 60-80% of dementia cases. With an aging population, the prevalence of AD is projected to reach 12.7 million.   AD is a progressive disease and pathological changes sometimes start decades before clinical symptoms manifest. As age is the greatest risk factor for AD, it tends to predominantly affect older adults. AD is a family disease and has a great impact on caregivers (CG) leading to high levels of CG stress and burden with many dying before the person with dementia. Women are disproportionately affected by the disease, as they represent higher number of patients and caregivers.   Due to the changing demographics, it is not uncommon to identify an older adult as the CG for their parent and more commonly a spouse. Alzheimer's disease continues to rapidly increase in incidence across the United States and worldwide without an approved disease modifying treatment or cure available. This combined with the small number of clinicians expert in diagnoses and management of dementia could prove disastrous for the access to quality care for patients and their family members. We desperately need to identify alternative models of care for the evaluation and treatment of dementia.