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Comment by wak90 | Hacker News Reader

I don't think that's clear at all.

Working age adults work from their early 20s to their 60s and end of life care does not typically last that long.

EOL with dementia can linger for well over a decade, and it only gets more expensive as it goes on.

Most people don’t experience dementia, and most of those who have it don’t need such extreme care. Taken to an extreme, this radio suggests under 5% of a steady state population would either have significant dementia or need to treat it. But again most such people are cared for by family members.

The point of this Village is to minimize the cost of treating significant outliers while maximizing their quality of life.

So it would need to scale out to 10s of thousands, no?

If everyone with dementia went to such a facility then we would need ~30,000 of them in the US. However, most people with dementia either don’t need such extreme care or have more severe medical issues, so the real number is probably a several hundred such facilities.

To compare, there are about 4,000 Walmarts in the USA. Each employs about 300 people.

>Most people don’t experience dementia

>In the first nationally representative study of cognitive impairment prevalence in more than 20 years, Columbia University researchers have found almost 10% of U.S. adults ages 65 and older have dementia, while another 22% have mild cognitive impairment.

https://www.cuimc.columbia.edu/news/one-10-older-americans-h...

https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamaneurology/article-abstr...

Sure, though don’t forget 1/4th of American men don’t live past 65, and less than half make it to 79. Dying young isn’t necessarily preferable, but it does impact these statistics.

Dementia is the between the 3rd and the 5th largest cause of death in first world countries, depending on the country, and how you count. Most people aren't currently experiencing dementia, but there's a very significant chance that you're going to end up with it eventually.

The actual question should not be what percentage of the population has it; the question should be what percentage of people will be suffering from dementia to the point that they need assisted living care when they die.

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