Mental illness continues to be an elusive target in our nation, as the data shows. A Mental Health America study found that 21 percent of Americans experience some form of mental illness, yet just 45 percent of that group ever receive any treatment for it.

Mississippi’s efforts to treat those with mental illness leaves much to be desired, with the Department of Justice and other groups filing lawsuits against the state for failure to provide adequate access to mental health treatment as far back as 2011.

The state’s mental health department continues to be under federal oversight.

Yet there is progress being made, especially in one area of mental illness — treatment for dementia, including Alzheimer’s Disease.

As the youngest Baby Boomers approach retirement age there are an estimated 6.2 million Americans aged 65 or older who have been diagnosed with dementia/Alzheimer’s. As medical care continues to extend life expectancy, the number of Americans suffering from these forms of mental illness is expected to more than double by 2060, unless a cure is found. In 2019, the last year for which statistics are available, 121,499 Americans died of dementia/Alzheimer’s, according to the National Library of Medicine.

For most of us, this data is not an abstraction. Almost every family has an elderly relative who has suffered from these mental illnesses and while we wait for a cure, the best we can hope for is to mitigate the effects of these illnesses through the latest, still evolving, treatments.

In a state ranked near the bottom for access to mental health care in general, we are pleased to note the arrival of the Golden Triangle’s first geriatric psychiatric care unit, which will provide elderly patients better access to care associated with aging, including dementia/Alzheimer’s.

Baptist Memorial Hospital-Golden Triangle officials announced the creation of the new unit this week. It will include eight beds and the hospital expects to add 25 staff to work in the unit.

Until now, the closest geriatric psych unit was located in Jackson, but the growing demand of this kind of care made securing those beds extremely difficult.

Baptist officials haven’t provided a date at which the unit will start treating patients, but the presence of a unit devoted entirely to this growing population will be a welcomed arrival indeed.

The Dispatch Editorial Board is made up of publisher Peter Imes, columnist Slim Smith, managing editor Zack Plair and senior newsroom staff.