Alzheimer’s Disease in America

A major health issue in America today is dementia, including Alzheimer’s disease. Alzheimer’s kills more Americans than breast cancer and prostate cancer combined. One in three seniors dies from Alzheimer’s or another form of dementia. Of the total U.S. population age 65 or older, about one in nine is living with Alzheimer’s. A total of seven million Americans have Alzheimer’s, and two-thirds are women.

Your author is 87 years old, and Alzheimer’s has touched my family in several ways. I have several friends and business partners battling with Alzheimer’s. One of the tragedies that I have seen is people who chose to end their lives prematurely when they learned they were facing Alzheimer’s disease. In 1998, an American pathologist named Jack Kevorkian was arrested for participating in 130 physician-assisted suicides. His arrest came when he assisted in the voluntary euthanasia of a man named Thomas Youk, who had ALS (Lou Gehrig’s disease). Kevorkian was convicted of second-degree manslaughter and served 8 years in prison. Kevorkian’s records show that many of the 130 suicides were people who found out they had Alzheimer’s and didn’t want to be a burden on their families.

First Corinthians 3:16 tells us, “Do you not know that you are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit has His home in you? If any man desecrates the Temple of God, God shall ruin him, for the Temple of God is sacred, and so are you.” Nothing in that description says that a person’s mental capacity affects the fact that God’s Spirit is in His temple. My son was born blind and mentally challenged, with cerebral palsy, muscular dystrophy, and schizophrenia. Was God’s Spirit in him? He brought a doctor and several nurses to Christ and was a significant force in the sheltered workshop he attended.

As Christians, we serve God by how we deal with people, no matter their mental state. Alzheimer’s disease can be challenging, but so was raising a young man who didn’t die until he was 50 years old as a victim of COVID. Treat someone who has Alzheimer’s with love and compassion. That is a ministry that will bring its own reward.

— John N. Clayton © 2025

Reference: Alzheimer’s Association for February 2025