As West Virginia’s population ages, taking a look at some of the health issues our seniors face becomes almost mandatory.

Chief among those health concerns is Alzheimer’s disease, which causes problems with memory, thinking and behavior. In many cases, Alzheimer’s and other forms of dementia become severe enough to interfere with everyday life.

The disease is a progressive one for which there is no cure. According to the Alzheimer’s Association, 36,000 West Virginians suffer from Alzheimer’s, and that number is projected to jump 22 percent over the next 10 years.

Some areas of the country are expected to see an even bigger spike in the number of Alzheimer’s patients, with Alaska, Arizona and Nevada all seeing an increase of more than 60 percent.

As the number of cases grows, researchers, pharmaceutical companies and the federal government will have to spend more in order to fund treatments and hopefully one day find a cure.

The financial burden, however, is astronomical. The estimated cost of care for 2015 is $226 billion, and that number will only keep growing until a cure is found.

Republican Sen. Shelley Moore Capito, who knows first-hand the effects of Alzheimer’s and dementia on families, signed on to support legislation that would create prize-based incentives that encourage more public-private collaboration in funding Alzheimer’s research.

“Through public-private partnerships and leveraging the smartest ideas with research at the National Institutes of Health, we can better understand, identify and eventually cure this devastating disease,” Capito said.

The bill would authorize the NIH to work with other federal agencies to establish the challenges based on research milestones in the National Plan to Address Alzheimer’s Disease. These challenges could focus on a variety of areas including identification and validation of Alzheimer’s biomarkers, development of non-invasive and cost-effective early detection and the repurposing of existing drugs to treat Alzheimer’s, among others.

The NIH has set a goal of curing Alzheimer’s by 2025. Supporters of the bill say they hope the legislation will be a cost-effective tool in supporting that goal.

Alzheimer’s is a devastating disease that affects millions of Americans and their families. Unless and until a cure is found, more than 16 million Americans are estimated to have the disease by 2050.

We applaud Capito and others in Congress for recognizing the need for expanded research and finding creative ways to fund the expensive endeavor.