Retired justice O'Connor speaks on Alzheimer's

By Maggie Fox, Health and Science Editor

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Retired U.S. Supreme Court justice Sandra Day O'Connor made a rare public appearance on Wednesday with emotional testimony in Congress in which she told how Alzheimer's disease had forced her to bring her husband to work with her.

Eventually, she retired early and reluctantly from the bench to care for him, O'Connor told a hearing at which she urged Congress and the federal government to back a comprehensive plan to eradicate the debilitating disease.

"You may remember that in the early days of my husband's illness, I often took him to court with me because he could not be left alone," O'Connor told a hearing of the U.S. Senate Special Committee on Aging.

"And, as you know, I retired from the U.S. Supreme Court in 2006 to find a care center for John in Phoenix, where two of our children live. Many caregivers make similarly difficult decisions each and every day.

"Sadly, these life-changing decisions are simply part of caring for someone with Alzheimer's," she said. Alzheimer's affects more than 5 million Americans and doctors predict it will become an epidemic as the population ages.

O'Connor, the first woman to serve on the U.S. Supreme Court, is part of the Alzheimer's Study Group, made up of experts, former politicians and others that aims to write a national strategic plan for Alzheimer's.

"Under current trends federal spending on Alzheimer's will increase to more than $1 trillion per year by 2050 in today's dollars," former House of Representatives Speaker Newt Gingrich, another member of the group, told the hearing.

GROWING ALZHEIMER'S CRISIS

"That's more than one tenth of America's current economy. With this amount of money at stake, the government simply will not be able to solve its looming fiscal problems if it fails to address the growing Alzheimer's crisis."

O'Connor said incremental approaches would not do enough, but Gingrich said the task was also not overwhelming.

"It's important to note that we don't even need to discover the Holy Grail -- the cure -- to substantially blunt Alzheimer's future toll," Gingrich said.

"According to a Lewin Group analysis commissioned by the Alzheimer's Association, a research advance that delayed the onset of Alzheimer's by just five years would translate by 2050 into a 5.3 million person (40 percent) reduction in disease prevalence and roughly $515 billion (44 percent) in annual savings for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services."

Committee chairman Herb Kohl, a Wisconsin Democrat, called the hearing to support a bill that would double the funding for Alzheimer's research at the National Institutes of Health to $1.3 billion. Kohl also sponsors a bill that would offer training and support services to family caregivers.

(Editing by Will Dunham and David Storey)