Projected to have the nation's fastest-growing rate of dementia diagnoses by 2025, Utah has joined the nation and 31 states that either have or are developing plans to confront the epidemic rise in Alzheimer's disease.

Senate Minority Whip Karen Morgan, of Cottonwood Heights, sponsored SB48, which sets up a 20-member task force to reckon how the state will manage the soaring costs and responsibilities related to Alzheimer's care.

"I have called it a health care crisis," said Morgan. "For me, the number-one thing to do is to educate the public, and then to figure out what to do to delay the onset [of Alzheimer's]. We are going to see a tremendous increase in the prevalence of this disease."

Morgan said her mother, who died in August, had early-stage Alzheimer's when Morgan happened to attend a conference on the subject. "I got so much information," she said. "I got in touch with the Alzheimer's Association. When you're faced with it with a close family member, you're forced to learn about it."

Under the new law, the state Division of Aging and Adult Services task force will meet at least six times starting as early as April. It will develop recommendations for responding to escalating needs for services and resources, and prepare a report in time for a legislative interim committee's November meeting.

The task force members have a lot of ground to cover by then.

Alzheimer's is an incurable progressive disease of the brain that causes memory loss and eventually death.

A new report from the Alzheimer's Association shows that 5.4 million Americans live with the disease, including more than 32,000 in Utah.

The report says there are more than 132,000 Alzheimer's and dementia caregivers in the Beehive State, who in 2010 provided more than 151 million hours of unpaid care, valued at $1.8 billion.

By 2050, nearly 16 million Americans will have Alzheimer's.

The report says 10 million baby boomers will either die with — or from — the disease, which is projected to cost the nation $20 trillion.

People can have Alzheimer's a decade or more before they are diagnosed. Morgan's mother, however, turned out to have a rare fast-moving form of the disease.

"Some people, when it hits, they fall off the cliff," Morgan said.

Adding to the crisis, said Nick Zullo, Utah Alzheimer's Association director of programs and advocacy, is the lack of progress on finding a cure or some way to slow it down.

It's been nearly nine years, he said, since a new Alzheimer's drug treatment has been approved.

An estimated 15 million Americans have undiagnosed Alzheimer's. "The brain changes are there," Zullo said, "but you're not aware of memory loss."

Medicare doesn't cover most dementia care, noted Norman Foster, professor of neurology and director of the University of Utah's Center for Alzheimer's Care, Imaging & Research, at a professional seminar in early March.

Some Alzheimer's day care centers have closed for lack of interest, he said, even though using such private-pay options might save families and the state money in the long run, by slowing disease progression and providing a respite for stressed-out caregivers.

Seminar participants also said many primary-care doctors don't know how to evaluate patients for Alzheimer's, and that 22 percent of calls to the state's help line are from people who want to find new doctors more interested in dementia care.

Jack Jenks, executive director of the Utah Alzheimer's Association, told symposium attendees that families in Utah have become more open to talking about it. The association, he said, in the past year has worked hard to let people know that "no one should have to face Alzheimer's alone."

Salt Lake Valley resident Leonard Romney, however, says that in his experience, discomfort levels remain high.

"The stigma is vicious," he said. "People are so unwilling to talk about it."

That's why he and his wife, Kathryn, decided to go public after her 2009 diagnosis.

Yet even now, friends tiptoe around the subject while they muster the courage to talk about their own worries.

"I have been so happy to talk to people about it," Kathryn Leonard said. "When we become open, the fears melt away."