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The cost of care is $185,000 higher for someone with dementia than
for someone without it, the study authors wrote in the Journal of
the American Geriatrics Society, online August 17.
“Dementia represents one of the costliest diseases, and most of the
responsibility of dementia care falls on families,” said lead study
author Dr. Eric Jutkowitz of Brown University in Providence, Rhode
Island.
More than five million Americans live with dementia, according to
the Alzheimer’s Association. That number could rise to 16 million by
2050.
“For our long-term care system to be sustainable, we need to provide
families with effective resources and tools,” Jutkowitz said by
email.
Jutkowitz and colleagues used data from the Centers for Medicare and
Medicaid Services and the National Alzheimer’s Coordinating Center
to estimate lifetime costs of care after a dementia diagnosis.
Overall, lifetime costs came to $321,780. Medicaid, the government
insurance for the poor, covered about 14%. Medicare, the federal
insurance program for the elderly and disabled, covered about 16%.
The 70% of costs after a dementia diagnosis born by families came to
$225,000, on average.
“We expected that dementia would cost a lot of money and that
families would incur a large portion of the cost,” Jutkowitz said.
“However, what was surprising was the magnitude of the total costs
and the amount families incur.”
The research team estimates that the cost of care would be $185,000
less for people without dementia.
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“It’s important to note that all of this doesn’t begin to touch the
indirect costs for families, such as missed work and missed school,
or the inability to take that promotion or job in another city,”
said Dr. Amy Kelley of the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai
in New York. Kelley, who wasn’t involved with this study, researches
dementia health care costs.
“It’s striking to see the challenge that families are up against,”
she told Reuters Health by phone. “What are we losing in terms of
the workforce and the perpetuation of poverty in families? It’s a
much bigger issue.”
“Families need to be aware that dementia may happen, and it could
happen to their parents, aunts, uncles, brothers, sisters and
possibly to them,” Dr. Michael Hurd of the RAND Corporation in Santa
Monica, California told Reuters Health by phone. “We need to think
about the whole issue of how to handle costs and care.”
Policymakers and health care providers need to think about creating
enough care facilities to help dementia patients, he said, as well
as technological advances that can help people age at home if
facilities aren’t available.
“More people are facing the prospect of dementia than in the past,”
Hurd said. “We need to be aware of that and the time and financial
consequences.”
SOURCE: http://bit.ly/2wuTc5M
J Am Geriatr Soc 2017.
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