After an extensive effort by advocates, the Social Security Administration has announced that effective March 1, 2010,  38 disabling medical conditions, including early on-set Alzheimer’s Disease and related dementias, will be added to the list of Compassionate Allowance conditions.  Compassionate allowances are used to ensure individuals “whose medical conditions are so serious that they obviously meet disability standards” receive benefits quickly.  Until now, individuals with early on-set Alzheimer’s Disease (those who develop the disease before the age of 65) were often initially denied benefits but usually won on appeal.  By that time, the individual had likely already experienced a very significant impairment in his or her ability to maintain substantial gainful impairment and the delay in receiving government benefits often caused extreme hardship.  Other conditions included in the list are Tay Sachs disease, primary progressive aphasia, one type of muscular dystrophy, a type of melanoma and a number of other relatively uncommon conditions.  For the full list, go to http://www.socialsecurity.gov/compassionateallowances/newconditions.htm.    For information about Compassionate Allowances, go to http://www.socialsecurity.gov/compassionateallowances./