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Alzheimer's advocates to gather at Capitol in hopes of updating Arizona's long-term care system

The Arizona Capitol as seen on Wednesday, Nov. 15, 2023.
Bridget Dowd/KJZZ
The Arizona Capitol as seen on Wednesday, Nov. 15, 2023.

On Monday, Alzheimer’s and aging advocates will be at the Arizona Capitol asking lawmakers to support a bill that would update and improve the state’s long-term care system.

Right now, the tool used to gauge whether a person has some kind of dementia or other cognitive decline hasn’t been updated since 2006.

Tory Roberg is the director of Government Affairs for the Alzheimer’s Association in Phoenix. She says that has presented challenges for those with Alzheimer’s who are seeking help to cover the immense cost of care.

"We've been hearing that many are denied due to a lack of formal diagnosis or insufficient scores on functional assessments because the functional assessments don't adequately weigh cognitive decline," she said.

These assessments are often done over the phone, making it difficult to see how that person functions in their environment. As a result, "we've heard of individuals living with dementia who have wandered or face incarceration for preventable behaviors if they were, if they had proper supervision and monitoring," Roberg said.

In 2024, Alzheimer’s and other dementias cost American taxpayers an estimated $360 billion, and is expected to hit nearly $1 trillion by 2050.

"What we're finding is without proper dementia care for vulnerable adults who are by all means financially eligible for ALTCS and would probably qualify functionally if the assessment were more comprehensive, what happens is we see an increased strain on the courts, emergency services, first responders, patients themselves and caregivers, too," she said.

Dementia is one of the costliest medical conditions and affects millions of Americans.

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KJZZ senior field correspondent Kathy Ritchie has 20 years of experience reporting and writing stories for national and local media outlets — nearly a decade of it has been spent in public media.
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