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Sep 16, 2020 4 mins, 13 secs
Left alone in her nursing home, she had lost 16 pounds, could not form the simplest words, no longer responded to the voices of her children.

deaths caused directly by the novel coronavirus, more than 134,200 people have died from Alzheimer’s and other forms of dementia since March.

deaths caused by dementia than expected, compared with previous years, according to an analysis of federal data by The Washington Post.

Excess deaths due to Alzheimer’s and dementia1

A Washington Post analysis of weekly deaths data from the CDC found about 13,200 excess deaths due to Alzheimer’s and dementia since March.

Excess deaths due to Alzheimer’s and dementia1

A Washington Post analysis of weekly deaths data from the CDC found about 13,200 excess deaths due to Alzheimer’s and dementia since March.

Excess deaths due to Alzheimer’s and dementia.

A Washington Post analysis of weekly deaths data from the CDC found about 13,200 excess deaths due to Alzheimer’s and dementia since March.

Excess deaths due to Alzheimer’s and dementia.

A Washington Post analysis of weekly deaths data from the CDC found about 13,200 excess deaths due to Alzheimer’s and dementia since March.

Social and mental stimulation are among the few tools that can slow the march of dementia?

leaders have rushed to reopen universities, bowling alleys and malls, nursing homes say they continue begging in vain for sufficient testing, protective equipment and help.

“It’s like we as a country just don’t care anymore about older people,” said Goerke, as he drove to his wife’s nursing home in Atlanta’s northern suburbs.

With cases in Georgia still high, the closest thing Denise’s nursing home has allowed is for Goerke to stand for a few minutes by the front door, while attendants wheel his wife to the lobby.

America has counted tens of thousands of excess deaths since the pandemic began.

Among the sources of excess deaths, dementia has produced by far the most — more than the next two categories, diabetes and heart disease, combined.

“We have clients who have lost almost 30 pounds,” said Sharon O’Connor, who runs a program for dementia patients at Iona Senior Services, a D.C.

In interviews with The Post, people with dementia who are still able to communicate said they felt trapped and doomed.

“Families fill in a lot of gaps at nursing homes.

In 2012, when Goerke and his wife got word of her diagnosis, Denise made him promise to never put her in a nursing home.

Even later at the nursing home, with seven siblings, three children and three grandkids, there were days when they had to coordinate all their visits.

Denise’s nursing home had long struggled financially, even before the virus.

population lives in nursing homes, yet nursing homes have accounted for roughly 40 percent of U.S.

deaths from covid-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus.

It took two weeks and rejections from 15 nursing homes before he found one willing to take Denise.

“I wasn’t sure she would live long enough for us to get her to the new place,” said Goerke, who checked in daily by phone and FaceTime.

At the new nursing home, staff began scheduling window visits for families.

The only reply from the nursing home lobby: silence.

But it feels at times, Goerke said, as though the suffering of people in nursing homes has been shoved into a corner to make room for everyone else’s.

Countries like the Netherlands have safely reopened their nursing homes without any increase in coronavirus cases by providing ample protective equipment, testing and rigorous protocols.

But in the United States, little of the trillions in emergency funding has gone to nursing homes.

For months, the Trump administration has talked of getting more testing into nursing homes, but the effort continues to be plagued with problems.

This month, Florida and Arizona said they want to reopen nursing homes but have yet to explain how they will do so safely, given shortages in equipment, staffing and testing.

“I believe the state of Georgia can help my family, and others like mine.” He pleaded for rapid testing in nursing homes

The rules include one exception for families to enter nursing homes — for deathbed visits

It was four months ago during a FaceTime call just after the nursing home had given Denise a haircut

For better or worse, Goerke said, his wife no longer remembered him well enough to miss him

The Washington Post gathered historical data on select causes of death by state between 2014 and early 2020, published by the National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS), and used a model previously developed by a research team led by the Yale School of Public Health to estimate the number of deaths that would normally be expected each week from March 1 to Aug

The mortality data are collected from state health departments, which report deaths at different rates

As a result, it is expected that the numbers of deaths in the period The Post analyzed will increase as states continue reporting additional data to the NCHS

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