As lawmakers talk about improving access to healthcare in all corners of Ohio, the Alzheimer’s Association released its 2023 data for the Buckeye State.

The trends are disturbing.

There are now 220,000 Ohioans living with Alzheimer’s. By 2025 that number is expected to reach 250,000. Care for those patients differs. There are 493,000 unpaid caregivers in the state. Those are family members taking on a labor of love, but often wearing themselves down in the process.

On the other hand, 17% of residents in hospice care currently have some form of dementia.

Medicaid costs of caring for those with Alzheimer’s are $2.534 billion. Medicare spending stands at $29,440 per person.

It is a massive, expensive and exhausting problem and it will only grow.

It is yet another in a long list of problems for which Ohio does not have enough resources now, let alone the means to tackle it as it grows.

Families are now finding themselves making difficult choices at the youngest and oldest stages of life, with those in the middle sacrificing and wearing themselves thin.

This issue can’t wait. Ohio’s policymakers need to act now to help families deal with this crisis.