Raquel Torres | Public Health Watch

The dementia fund’s approval comes at a critical moment for Texas, which ranks second in the nation in Alzheimer’s deaths and third in the disease’s prevalence. The need for intervention is especially high in the Rio Grande Valley — a four-county region along the Texas-Mexico border that’s become the epicenter of a nationwide Alzheimer’s spike.

Texas ranks second in the nation for Alzheimer’s deaths and third in prevalence: 460,000 people have the disease and 1.1 million more are their caretakers. But the state’s lack of funding for memory care and support, along with its ongoing refusal to expand Medicaid, is making matters worse.