Alzheimers Dementia: Follow-up of 20,000 people for 20 years, before and after dementia diagnosis, what about medical expenditures?

Currently, dementia is one of the leading causes of death and disability, placing a huge burden on people with dementia disease (hereinafter referred to as "dementia"), their families and society
.

Since the risk of dementia after age 65 doubles every 5 years and the elderly population is growing in many countries, the prevalence and associated healthcare costs are also likely to accelerate

As dementia rates rise, policy is increasingly motivated to take economists' perspectives into account and consider more precisely what is driving costs
.

Policymakers need reliable, up-to-date information on the consequences of dementia to plan services and develop appropriate policies

The annual global cost of dementia is estimated to be $1 trillion
.

An analysis of health care costs can provide useful information on the source and extent of the burden of care associated with a particular disease

However, many studies lack a comparison group -- that is, cognitively healthy people, making it difficult to measure excess medical costs for dementia
.

Furthermore, most of the studies in the review were based on cross-sectional data and did not provide information on the development of dementia costs over time

With this, Sofie Persson et al.
, Lund University, Sweden, explored medical costs attributable to dementia over a 17-year period and provided cost insights in the decade before diagnosis, estimated the extent of cost increases at diagnosis, and examined 6 years after diagnosis .
cost trends
.

As previous research has shown, cognitive impairment in dementia may develop up to 18 years before diagnosis

diagnosis

The core hypothesis is that increases in health care costs can be observed years before dementia is officially diagnosed
.

Using administrative registry data (n = 21,184) of people diagnosed with dementia (2010-2016) in southern Sweden, and a control group without dementia, they used longitudinal regression analysis to examine 17-year healthcare costs
.

They found that mean medical costs per person per year in the dementia group were consistently higher before diagnosis (10 years ago, SEK 2063, P < .
005; 1 year ago.
SEK
8166, P < .

005)

Average medical costs per person per year in the dementia group were consistently higher before diagnosis (10 years ago, SEK 2063, P < .

Four to six years after diagnosis, there were no significant differences in costs compared with comparators
.

The significance of the study lies in its findings: Excessive medical costs occurred as early as 10 years before the official dementia diagnosis, and while post-diagnosis costs surged, medical costs were no different four years later
.

These findings challenge currently accepted assumptions about the cost of dementia

Excessive medical bills appear as early as 10 years before official dementia diagnosis

Original source:
Persson S, Saha S, Gerdtham U, Toresson H, Trépel D, Jarl J.

H ealthcare costs of dementia diseases before, during and after diagnosis: Longitudinal analysis of 17 years of Swedish register data.
Alzheimer's & Dementia.
Published online February 21, 2022: alz.
12619.
doi: 10.
1002/alz.
12619

ealthcare costs of dementia diseases before, during and after diagnosis: Longitudinal analysis of 17 years of Swedish register data.

 

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