THE BUSH administration has ended an injustice by authorizing Medicare coverage for treatment of Alzheimer's disease.

In the past, Medicare carriers routinely denied payments for Alzheimer's-related care, based on the assumption that the medical condition of people with the illness could not improve. Indeed, this progressive disease of the brain remains incurable and irreversible.

That fact does not mean, however, that proper medical care cannot improve the health and well-being of those who suffer from it. People with early and moderate-stage Alzheimer's especially can benefit greatly from a range of therapies and outpatient services.

Physical and occupational therapies can help people retain daily living skills, such as dressing and grooming, that will allow them to maintain a degree of independence longer than would otherwise be possible.

Drugs have slowed the progression of the illness in some cases. And drugs and psychotherapy can treat mental illnesses among Alzheimer's patients as much as any other population.

For example, the changes in personality and loss of mental abilities that mark the disease can be cause for depression. But depression is a distinct mental illness that can be treated. People with Alzheimer's suffer no less than anyone else when afflicted with depression; they, too, need relief from the pain.

The change in Medicare policy signals hope on two fronts.

First, it ends a discriminatory practice that has cost victims and their families a lot of money, and made treatment inaccessible to people who have needed it but simply could not afford it.

Second, the new policy reflects medical advances: Doctors often are able now to diagnose Alzheimer's with reasonable certainty in its early stage, when patients can benefit most from therapy.

Proper care can delay a patient's entry into a nursing home, a savings that will help to offset the new policy's considerable cost to taxpayers. Nearly 4 million Americans have Alzheimer's disease, a number that will mushroom as the baby boom generation ages. The Alzheimer's Association estimates that 10 percent of people over 65 and nearly half over 85 have Alzheimer's.

Unless science finds a way to prevent or cure the disease, Medicare will be paying for a lot of therapy in the coming decades. Millions of families can attest, though, that will be money well- spent to ease suffering.

　　From Healthy.net