Read this first
This page ranks states on a survey answer. It does not rank providers, it does not rank places to live, and it is not about residential memory care.
The people counted here are only those who had already said their memory was getting worse. So the figures are a share of that group, not a share of all older adults, and they are not comparable to the numbers on any other page without that in mind.
If this is the question you are living with, the page that describes the practical answer is a day of support at home.
For a third of Missourians, memory loss already means needing help
A second survey question asks the people who reported memory trouble whether it means they need help getting through the day. It is the one figure on this site that maps directly onto what a family is trying to decide.
The first question in this survey is about noticing. The second one is about consequence, and for a family it is by far the more useful of the two.
Everyone who answered this question had already said that their memory was getting worse. They were then asked whether, because of it, they need assistance with day-to-day activities. That phrase is doing a lot of quiet work. It means the ordinary business of a day: meals, dressing, keeping to a routine, remembering what has already been done and what has not. It is precisely the territory of non-medical support at home, and it is the reason this page exists.
What makes it a hard number to read is that it depends on who answered the first question. A state where relatively few people admit to memory trouble may be a state where only those with the most difficulty say so, which pushes this second figure up. Read the ranking with that in mind, and read the confidence ranges, which on this question are wide.
Missouri and Illinois are a long way apart
In Missouri, 33.9 percent of older adults who reported memory loss said it means they need help with day-to-day activities, which places the state 10 of 46. The published range runs from 27.2 to 41.4 percent.
Illinois ranks 1 of 46, at 52.5 percent, with a range from 37.5 to 67.1 percent. That is the widest range in the top of this table and it should be treated with real caution. Two neighbouring states this far apart on the same question is a reminder that these are survey answers from samples of people, not counts of anybody.
The steadier way to hold the Missouri figure is the plain one. Of the older Missourians who say their memory is getting worse, roughly one in three also says it has already reached the ordinary business of the day. That is not a projection about the future. It is where a sizeable share of families in this state already are.
Where the other number lives
The share of all older adults who report memory trouble in the first place is a separate question with its own page: memory loss among older adults, by state. Missouri ranks differently there, and the two pages should not be read as one measure.
The ten highest in the series
Ordered from the highest share downwards. The full table of all 46 follows.
- Illinois, 52.5 percent of those reporting memory loss
- North Carolina, 42.1 percent of those reporting memory loss
- Mississippi, 39.2 percent of those reporting memory loss
- Florida, 38.7 percent of those reporting memory loss
- New York, 37.9 percent of those reporting memory loss
- Kentucky, 37.3 percent of those reporting memory loss
- Rhode Island, 36.1 percent of those reporting memory loss
- Louisiana, 35.5 percent of those reporting memory loss
- Arkansas, 34.3 percent of those reporting memory loss
- Missouri, 33.9 percent of those reporting memory loss
Every jurisdiction in the series
| Rank | State or jurisdiction | Need help day to day | Range |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Illinois | 52.5% | 37.5 to 67.1 |
| 2 | North Carolina | 42.1% | 29.8 to 55.4 |
| 3 | Mississippi | 39.2% | 33.1 to 45.7 |
| 4 | Florida | 38.7% | 27.7 to 50.9 |
| 5 | New York | 37.9% | 31.2 to 45.0 |
| 6 | Kentucky | 37.3% | 26.7 to 49.2 |
| 7 | Rhode Island | 36.1% | 27.1 to 46.2 |
| 8 | Louisiana | 35.5% | 26.4 to 45.8 |
| 9 | Arkansas | 34.3% | 26.4 to 43.1 |
| 10 | Missouri | 33.9% | 27.2 to 41.4 |
| 11 | Iowa | 33.7% | 23.5 to 45.6 |
| 12 | West Virginia | 33.6% | 26.5 to 41.5 |
| 13 | Georgia | 33.3% | 26.2 to 41.2 |
| 14 | Alabama | 32.9% | 26.1 to 40.4 |
| 15 | Texas | 32.5% | 27.3 to 38.2 |
| 16 | Pennsylvania | 31.8% | 23.2 to 41.9 |
| 17 | Indiana | 30.8% | 24.5 to 37.9 |
| 18 | New Hampshire | 30.2% | 21.4 to 40.8 |
| 19 | California | 29.4% | 20.2 to 40.7 |
| 20 | District of Columbia | 29.1% | 19.2 to 41.5 |
| 21 | Connecticut | 28.9% | 17.2 to 44.2 |
| 22 | Tennessee | 28.6% | 23.1 to 34.7 |
| 23 | Michigan | 28.1% | 21.8 to 35.4 |
| 24 | New Mexico | 28.1% | 20.6 to 37.0 |
| 25 | Washington | 27.0% | 20.8 to 34.4 |
| 26 | Oklahoma | 26.5% | 20.5 to 33.5 |
| 27 | Hawaii | 26.1% | 18.9 to 34.8 |
| 28 | South Carolina | 26.0% | 20.7 to 32.1 |
| 29 | Ohio | 24.3% | 18.7 to 31.0 |
| 30 | Virginia | 24.3% | 20.3 to 28.7 |
| 31 | Kansas | 23.9% | 16.7 to 32.9 |
| 32 | Maine | 22.8% | 17.5 to 29.1 |
| 33 | Nebraska | 22.1% | 16.8 to 28.5 |
| 34 | Wisconsin | 21.9% | 17.1 to 27.7 |
| 35 | Alaska | 21.2% | 11.8 to 35.0 |
| 36 | Maryland | 20.3% | 13.9 to 28.7 |
| 37 | Idaho | 20.1% | 14.6 to 27.1 |
| 38 | Colorado | 19.5% | 12.9 to 28.5 |
| 39 | Arizona | 18.9% | 13.8 to 25.3 |
| 40 | Utah | 18.7% | 14.7 to 23.5 |
| 41 | Wyoming | 18.7% | 11.9 to 28.3 |
| 42 | North Dakota | 18.6% | 12.7 to 26.3 |
| 43 | Nevada | 18.2% | 12.4 to 26.0 |
| 44 | Oregon | 17.8% | 11.2 to 27.0 |
| 45 | Minnesota | 16.2% | 12.3 to 20.9 |
| 46 | Vermont | 14.9% | 10.9 to 20.1 |
What needing help actually looks like
The survey phrase is abstract. The reality is not. It tends to mean that lunch does not happen unless someone makes it happen, that the same shirt has been worn since Sunday, that the pills are in the box but the box is on the wrong day. Help at this stage is unglamorous and largely consists of somebody being in the house at the right hours.
For the practical shape of that, the National Institute on Aging publishes a public guide to Alzheimer's caregiving, and the Alzheimer's Association sets out how families build a daily care plan. Neither is selling anything and both are better starting points than any provider's brochure.
What none of it replaces is the clinical conversation. Whatever the day-to-day help looks like, the underlying question of what is causing the memory change belongs with the person's doctor, and only about a third of older Missourians who report memory trouble have had that conversation. That gap has its own page here.
Featured placement
New Plan Care
Independently owned in-home care serving St. Louis and the surrounding communities.
About this listing. New Plan Care is a client of OwnersFirm, the company that publishes this site, and this placement is paid for. It is not a rating, nothing on this page measured it, and no survey result on this site had any bearing on it appearing here. New Plan Care describes its own services as including in-home support for people living with dementia and Alzheimer's disease. That is a description of a non-medical service: help with routine, meals, companionship and supervision in a person's own home. It is not medical treatment, it is not a diagnosis, and no one here is a clinician. Call (314) 405-0887.