SYRACUSE, N.Y. -- You can't tell by looking, but so many around us have something we can't immediately see. Alzheimer's disease. The Alzheimer's Association released a national study showing the number of people with the disease.

Since 2000, a handful of Central New York counties have all showed increases. Onondaga County alone saw a significant jump in those with the disease, next to neighboring Cayuga County. It's a fact that will keep our sluggish economy struggling.

"People over the age of 65, their health care costs triple if they have Alzheimer's disease than those that do not have it," said Jared Paventi, Alzheimer's Association Director of Communications. "So the average cost of care for someone without Alzheimer's disease is about $10,000. And what we're seeing is the cost for someone with the disease over the age of 65 is over $33,000."

According to Paventi, one in every eight Central New Yorkers, over the age of 65, suffer from the disease. Many go undiagnosed. And for all we know, it could be somebody that passes us on the street.

"It is an aging population with a large group of people over the age of 65. And when we broke those numbers out, it really showed that with more people entering that frame, there are going to be more people projected with the disease," Paventi said.

Medicare and Medicaid costs have soared into the billions. But it doesn't end there. Finding a cure also tips the scales.

"We're looking at being able to treat the disease with medication that can stop it in its tracks so that way, researches can then look back and say, okay, are there sets of symptoms that we need to look at. Because if we can stop memory loss at the first sign of it, we can go back and look at those other symptoms, see what the other precursors of the disease are and hopefully, within time, come up with a cure.

Paventi says the numbers in Central New York will only continue to rise.

In Jefferson, Lewis and St. Lawrence counties, nearly 6,000 people have Alzheimer’s, a 20 percent increase since 2000.