Dementia and Estate Planning Statistics: California Numbers (2026)

By Eric Ridley, attorney, Ridley Law. Updated October 2026.

This page collects the figures reporters and writers ask for most about dementia, money, and estate planning in California. Each one traces to the organization that first published it: the Alzheimer’s Association, the California Department of Public Health, the CDC, the National Bureau of Economic Research, federal financial regulators, the FBI, or the California Department of Social Services. Every source is linked and dated. Secondhand reports are left out, and where a source reports national numbers only, the page says so. We review it every quarter.

Cite this page: Ridley Law, “Dementia and Estate Planning Statistics: California Numbers (2026),” ridleylawoffices.com/dementia-estate-planning-statistics-california/, October 2026.

How Many Californians Have Alzheimer’s Disease or Dementia?

How many Californians age 65 and older have Alzheimer’s disease?

About 719,700 Californians age 65 and older had clinical Alzheimer’s dementia in 2020, or 12.0% of that age group, according to the Alzheimer’s Association’s 2026 Facts and Figures report.

That is the largest count of any state. The Association’s state estimates come from age, sex, and race distributions of each state’s population, so they are modeled estimates and not a registry count. The report does not publish a California projection. Source: Alzheimer’s Association, 2026 Alzheimer’s Disease Facts and Figures (2026), Table 5.

How many Californians will have Alzheimer’s disease by 2040?

The University of California, San Francisco projected for the California Department of Public Health that Californians 65 and older with Alzheimer’s disease would grow from 661,952 in 2019 to 874,482 in 2025 and 1,551,236 in 2040 (report dated January 2021).

Area	2019 estimate	2025 projection	2040 projection
California	661,952	874,482	1,551,236
Los Angeles County	166,857	219,258	405,382
Ventura County	14,843	19,702	35,613
Santa Barbara County	8,067	9,936	16,305

The 2040 figure is about 2.3 times the 2019 estimate. The state’s overall population is projected to grow 16% over the same years, while the number of Californians age 55 and older with Alzheimer’s is projected to grow 127% from 2019 to 2040, from 702,556 to 1,594,262. These are projections from a 2019 baseline, and they use a different method than the Alzheimer’s Association’s 2020 figure above, so the two series should not be spliced together. Source: Ross, Beld and Yeh, Alzheimer’s Disease and Related Dementias Facts and Figures in California, prepared for the California Department of Public Health (2021), Table C6 (county table), Table C1, and Executive Summary.

How many Americans have Alzheimer’s disease?

An estimated 7.4 million Americans age 65 and older are living with clinical Alzheimer’s dementia in 2026, about 1 in 9 people (11%) in that age group, according to the Alzheimer’s Association’s 2026 Facts and Figures report.

Prevalence rises with age. The report puts it at 5.2% of people ages 65 to 74 and 35.8% of people 85 and older. Source: Alzheimer’s Association, 2026 Alzheimer’s Disease Facts and Figures (2026).

What is the lifetime risk of Alzheimer’s disease and dementia?

Among California baby boomers who live to age 65 and older, about 1 in 6 will develop Alzheimer’s disease and about 1 in 5 will develop dementia, according to the 2021 UCSF report prepared for the California Department of Public Health.

The Alzheimer’s Association’s 2026 report gives national lifetime risks of clinical Alzheimer’s dementia at age 65 of 21.1% for women and 11.6% for men, from Framingham Heart Study data through 2009. Sources: Ross, Beld and Yeh, Alzheimer’s Disease and Related Dementias Facts and Figures in California, prepared for the California Department of Public Health (2021); Alzheimer’s Association, 2026 Alzheimer’s Disease Facts and Figures (2026), Figure 7.

How many Californians die of Alzheimer’s disease each year?

Alzheimer’s disease caused 16,286 deaths in California in 2024, a rate of 41.3 per 100,000 people, according to the Alzheimer’s Association’s 2026 Facts and Figures report.

The same table lists 116,022 deaths nationwide. California has the largest count of any state. Source: Alzheimer’s Association, 2026 Alzheimer’s Disease Facts and Figures (2026), Table 6.

How many Californians report memory loss that is getting worse?

In 2022, 11.2% of California adults 45 and older (95% confidence interval 9.4% to 13.2%) said their confusion or memory loss was happening more often or getting worse, according to the CDC’s Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System data.

The CDC calls this subjective cognitive decline. It is self-reported and is not a diagnosis. The CDC’s California summary adds that less than half of people with it have discussed their symptoms with a health care provider, 39% had to give up day-to-day activities, and 33% need help with household tasks. The national 2022 figure on the same CDC portal is 11.3%. Sources: CDC, Alzheimer’s Disease and Healthy Aging Data (BRFSS) (2022 data); CDC and Alzheimer’s Association, California Subjective Cognitive Decline infographic (December 2023).

Do People Lose Money Before a Dementia Diagnosis?

When does financial decline begin before dementia?

A 2026 National Bureau of Economic Research working paper found that household wealth starts to fall behind about six years before dementia onset, in a nationally representative study of adults 65 and older.

The paper, by Jing Li, Kathleen McGarry, Lauren Hersch Nicholas, and Jonathan Skinner, was issued in January 2026 and revised in July 2026. It is a working paper, so it has not been peer reviewed. Source: Li, McGarry, Nicholas and Skinner, Dementia and Long-run Trajectories in Household Finances, NBER Working Paper 34659 (2026).

What did the NBER study measure?

The study used the Health and Retirement Study, a biennial survey of U.S. adults 50 and older, and compared 2,312 people who developed dementia with 8,431 controls who never did, drawn from 21,442 respondents age 65 and older between 2000 and 2016.

“Dementia onset” is not a diagnosis date. The authors define it as the first survey wave in which an estimated probability of dementia, built from the survey’s cognitive tests, rises above 50%. Controls were reweighted to match the cases on age, sex, education, marital status, and race and ethnicity. Dollar figures are in 2018 dollars. Source: Li, McGarry, Nicholas and Skinner, Dementia and Long-run Trajectories in Household Finances, NBER Working Paper 34659 (2026).

How large was the wealth gap?

At the survey wave of dementia onset, the people who developed dementia had $124,149 less mean household net worth than similar adults who did not, and $78,664 less in financial wealth, according to the NBER paper.

Eight to six years before onset, the gap was about $30,000 in net worth and about $40,000 in financial wealth, and the authors report that difference as statistically insignificant. The gap widened after that. Non-financial wealth such as real estate, vehicles, and businesses stayed close to the controls until about four years before onset, then fell behind by $45,483 at onset. Source: Li, McGarry, Nicholas and Skinner, Dementia and Long-run Trajectories in Household Finances, NBER Working Paper 34659 (2026).

Which assets fell first?

Financial assets fell first. In the paper’s event-study version, which tracks each person against their own history, the relative drop in net worth between six and four years before onset was about $16,800, and the authors attribute all of it to financial wealth.

Stocks, bonds, mutual funds, and investment accounts showed the largest relative decline: $9,090 four years before onset (imprecisely estimated), $15,775 two years before, and $20,147 at onset. Six years before onset the two groups held about the same amount in that category, roughly $92,000. Source: Li, McGarry, Nicholas and Skinner, Dementia and Long-run Trajectories in Household Finances, NBER Working Paper 34659 (2026).

What did the study rule out?

The authors tested six explanations. Five got little support: reduced earnings, higher out-of-pocket medical spending, deliberate spending down to qualify for Medicaid, spending more while still able, and wealth loss causing dementia. The sixth, impaired financial decision-making, fit the data.

Earnings fell by about $947 at the wave of onset, less than 3% of average income. People with other serious conditions, such as cancer or heart disease, did not show a similar decline before onset. The authors conclude the results point to impaired financial decision-making beginning about six years before clinically recognizable dementia. Source: Li, McGarry, Nicholas and Skinner, Dementia and Long-run Trajectories in Household Finances, NBER Working Paper 34659 (2026).

What can the NBER study not show?

The paper says plainly that financial mismanagement is identified mainly by ruling out other explanations, not observed directly.

The survey has no data on individual trades or transactions, so the authors cannot separate active mistakes such as fraud from passive neglect such as failing to rebalance. They also report that people with a timely memory-related diagnosis lost less after onset, but that timely diagnosis may reduce, not fully prevent, the loss. They suggest safeguards set up well in advance, such as multiple authorized financial contacts. Source: Li, McGarry, Nicholas and Skinner, Dementia and Long-run Trajectories in Household Finances, NBER Working Paper 34659 (2026).

When do missed payments and credit problems start?

People later diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease or a related dementia were more likely to miss credit payments as early as six years before diagnosis, 7.7% versus 7.3%, according to a 2021 study in JAMA Internal Medicine of 81,364 single Medicare beneficiaries.

Subprime credit scores showed up 2.5 years before diagnosis, 8.5% versus 8.1%. In the quarter after diagnosis, 7.9% of people with dementia missed payments, against 6.9% of similar people without it. The authors estimated that missed-payment penalties would cost households $383 to $670 in the four years before diagnosis. Source: Nicholas, Langa, Bynum and Hsu, Financial Presentation of Alzheimer Disease and Related Dementias, JAMA Internal Medicine (2021).

Do people with early Alzheimer’s disease fall for scams more often?

Lower scam awareness was linked to a higher risk of Alzheimer’s dementia in a Rush University study of 935 older adults followed for about six years, published in the Annals of Internal Medicine in 2019.

During follow-up, 151 participants (16.1%) developed Alzheimer’s dementia. Each one-unit increase in the scam score was associated with a hazard ratio of 1.56 for Alzheimer’s dementia (95% confidence interval 1.21 to 2.01). The authors caution that the measure is too weak to predict risk for an individual. Source: Boyle et al., Scam Awareness Related to Incident Alzheimer Dementia and Mild Cognitive Impairment, Annals of Internal Medicine (2019).

The window these studies describe, years of weaker financial judgment before anyone has a diagnosis, is the same window courts look at when a late trust change or will is challenged. Our guides cover the capacity window, whether someone with dementia can amend a trust, signing a will with dementia, and the difference between undue influence and lack of capacity.

How Common Is Financial Exploitation of Older Adults?

How much elder financial exploitation do banks report?

Financial institutions filed 155,415 elder financial exploitation reports tied to more than $27 billion in suspicious activity between June 15, 2022 and June 15, 2023, according to the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN, April 2024).

FinCEN notes the dollar figure may include both completed and attempted transactions. Banks filed 72% of the reports. Elder scams, where the victim does not know the perpetrator, made up about 80% of the filings, which FinCEN says does not mean scams happen more often than theft. In a manual review of elder theft reports, adult children were identified as the perpetrator in nearly 40% of cases. FinCEN treats people 60 and older as older adults. Source: FinCEN, Financial Trend Analysis: Elder Financial Exploitation, June 2022 to June 2023 (2024).

How much does a typical victim lose?

When a suspicious activity report recorded a loss to the older adult, the average loss was $34,200, and in 7% of those reports the loss exceeded $100,000, according to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s 2019 analysis of 2013 to 2017 filings.

Financial institutions filed 63,500 of these reports in 2017 and reported $1.7 billion in suspicious activity that year. Adults ages 70 to 79 had the highest average loss at $45,300, and one third of the people who lost money were 80 or older. The average loss was about $50,000 when the older adult knew the suspect and $17,000 when the suspect was a stranger. Source: Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, Suspicious Activity Reports on Elder Financial Exploitation: Issues and Trends (2019).

How much do fiduciaries and agents take?

In the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s 2019 sample of 1,051 reports, suspects identified as fiduciaries took an average of $83,600 per older adult, the highest of any suspect category, and 88% of reports naming a fiduciary involved a loss to the older adult, counting partial losses.

The Bureau counts agents under a power of attorney as fiduciaries and found that about 7% of all reports involved a fiduciary suspect. Family members averaged $42,700 and strangers $17,000. Source: Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, Suspicious Activity Reports on Elder Financial Exploitation: Issues and Trends (2019), Figure 9. For the document that creates that risk, see our guide to the durable power of attorney in California.

Have suspicious activity reports on elder exploitation kept growing?

Financial institutions filed 62,014 elder financial exploitation reports in 2020, about 300 fewer than the 62,298 filed in 2019, according to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s 2021 data spotlight.

After the Bureau excluded the largest 1% of reports by dollar amount, the reports involved $3.4 billion in suspicious activity in 2020, up from $2.6 billion in 2019. That was the largest year-to-year increase since 2013. Source: Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, Data Spotlight: Suspicious Activity Reports on Elder Financial Exploitation (2021).

How many elder financial abuse allegations does California receive?

California county adult protective services agencies recorded 68,517 allegations of financial abuse in federal fiscal year 2023-24, according to the California Department of Social Services.

Agencies received 287,698 reports of suspected abuse of elders and dependent adults that year, and the state’s own statewide figures show 28,370 of the financial abuse allegations, or 41.4%, were confirmed. Our county-by-county report breaks the data down for all 58 counties. Source: California Department of Social Services, SOC 242 Statistical Report (federal fiscal year 2023-24, published November 2024).

How much do older Californians lose to internet fraud?

California residents 60 and older filed 22,157 complaints with the FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center in 2025 and reported $1,403,975,911 in losses, the highest count and the highest dollar loss of any state, according to the 2025 IC3 Annual Report.

Nationwide, complainants 60 and older filed 201,266 complaints and reported $7.748 billion in losses, up 59% from 2024, with an average loss of $38,500. A total of 12,444 of them lost more than $100,000. Source: FBI Internet Crime Complaint Center, 2025 IC3 Annual Report (2026).

None of the federal reports above counts how many victims had dementia. FinCEN does list declining cognitive abilities among the factors in romance scam victimization. See also our guides to financial elder abuse and trust contests and dementia and undue influence in trust disputes.

What Does Dementia Cost Families?

How much does dementia care cost in the United States?

Total payments for health care and long-term care for people with Alzheimer’s or other dementias are projected to reach $409 billion in 2026, according to the Alzheimer’s Association’s 2026 Facts and Figures report.

Medicare and Medicaid are expected to cover $263 billion of that (64%), and out-of-pocket spending is expected to be $103 billion (25%). The total does not include the value of unpaid family care. Source: Alzheimer’s Association, 2026 Alzheimer’s Disease Facts and Figures (2026).

What does dementia cost one family over a lifetime?

The Alzheimer’s Association’s 2026 report cites an estimated total lifetime cost of care for someone with dementia of $405,262 in 2024 dollars, with 70% borne by family caregivers through unpaid care and out-of-pocket expenses.

The rest is paid by Medicare and Medicaid. The Association notes that these estimates may understate the financial effect on caregivers. Source: Alzheimer’s Association, 2026 Alzheimer’s Disease Facts and Figures (2026).

How many Californians provide unpaid dementia care?

In 2025, 1.403 million Californians provided unpaid care for a person with Alzheimer’s or another dementia, giving 1.904 billion hours of care valued at $53.2 billion, according to the Alzheimer’s Association’s 2026 report.

Nationally, 12.7 million unpaid caregivers provided 19.6 billion hours valued at $446.3 billion. Source: Alzheimer’s Association, 2026 Alzheimer’s Disease Facts and Figures (2026), Table 10.

What does Medicare spend per person with dementia in California?

Per-person Medicare fee-for-service spending for beneficiaries with Alzheimer’s or other dementias was $48,018 in California in 2025 dollars, the highest of any state, according to the Alzheimer’s Association’s 2026 report.

The lowest was $23,701 in Montana. Source: Alzheimer’s Association, 2026 Alzheimer’s Disease Facts and Figures (2026), Table 19. For how a living trust and Medi-Cal fit together after a diagnosis, see a parent with dementia, a living trust, and Medi-Cal.