Aging Population and COVID-19 By Dr. Chitra Dorai

AGING AND COVID-19 A PORTRAIT IN NUMBERS

By Amicus Brain Innovations, Inc. Contact: Dr. Chitra Dorai

As the Covid-19 pandemic sweeps through the globe upending the lives of billions of people, a stark fact is that Older adults are more likely at higher risk for developing more severe complications from COVID-19 illness. The COVID-19 coronavirus is a respiratory disease that causes symptoms such as fever, cough, and shortness of breath. It can lead to serious illness and death.

Amicus Brain Innovations, a health tech startup focused on bringing the power of Artificial Intelligence (AI) technology to transform caring for aging population with neurodegenerative disorders has embarked on a data collection and analysis initiative to present a portrait of the risk faced by the aging population in numbers.

As the table shows, while New York and Florida have comparable counts of older population (4.5 Million and 4.4 Million respectively), the infection rates vary dramatically. 14,411 cases per million of 60+ in the state of New York compared to 1,468 cases per million of 65+ in Florida. Reasons are clear.

New York is densely populated, especially New York city and coronavirus spreads more easily in dense, packed areas. Size also is part of the explanation with New York city and its over 8 million people. Another big reason is also the high testing underway in New York.

This table also highlights the impact of the early self-isolation measures as seen in the number of California. While California has a 5.6 Million 65+ population in the state, the Covid infection rate is 1,187 per million of 65+, a lower number of disease incidence compared to some of the other states.

The harrowing stories of nursing homes becoming death traps are highlighted in the New Jersey Covid infection rate. While New Jersey’s aged population is about ¼ of the state of New York, its Covid infection rates are alarmingly comparable. 12,187 per million of 65+ in New Jersey and 14,411 per million of 60+ in New York.

HOW CAN WE HELP TO REDUCE RISK AND PREVENT ILLNESS?

A number of useful resources are available to educate and implement community actions designed to reduce exposures to COVID-19 and slow the spread of the disease. Here is a list.

From Administration of Community Living: What do Older Adults Need to Know?

https://acl.gov/COVID-19

From CDC: What can you do if you are at higher risk?

https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/

From NIH: NIH Clinical Trial of a Vaccine for COVID-19 Now Enrolling Older Adults

https://www.niaid.nih.gov/news-events/

From ALZ: Steps that Dementia Caregivers can take to reduce risk

https://www.alz.org/help-support/

From AARP: Coronavirus and Older Adults

https://www.aarp.org/health/conditions-treatments/

ABOUT US: The number of people in the US living with cognitive impairment (including Alzheimer’s Disease and related dementia) is over 5.8M today and is expected to increase to nearly 14M by 2050. The rapidly growing population of informal caregivers (more than 16M today) of people with cognitive impairment is subject to high stress due to patient behavioral symptoms, increased demands on caregiver time, and lack of adequate care-giving knowledge and training. The economic value of the caregivers' time spent providing more than 8.5 billion hours of care is estimated to be nearly $234 billion.

Amicus Brain’s AI-led personalized services focus on caregivers and their complex, time-consuming tasks. Our smart assistive services reduce caregiver load and save time by providing advice and decision support with AI-mediated conversational engagement. We are transforming caregiving by providing a scalable, cost-effective solution that raises the standard of current practices in neurodegenerative care and leads to improved health outcomes.

Our team members are based in New York, Boston, Irvine, USA and Bengaluru, India.