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The Rising Cost of Dementia : a look at the direct and indirect costs of medical care and social care

When examining the total cost of dementia care, several types of costs need to be calculated. The easiest to measure are the direct costs of medical care, which are the costs of treating dementia and other conditions in primary and secondary care. Included in this category are hospital care, medications, and visits to clinics. The second cost to consider are the direct costs of social care provided by community care professionals and residential home professionals. This includes home care, food supply, transport, and residential and nursing home care. The hardest category to measure is that of indirect care, or the informal, unpaid care provided by family members and loved ones. To calculate the total cost of indirect care, the time spent by caregivers must be weighed against the lost wages they would otherwise be earning. Similarly, this category includes the loss of wages and productivity of the patient. The past two decades have seen an increase in the cost of care for patients with dementia that poses a formidable threat for the future of the healthcare system (Figure 1). In 1992, per capita Medicare expenditures for patients with DAT were 1.9 times that of controls, averaging to a cost of $6,208 (Weiner, 1998). In just two years, this jumped to $15,700 spent by medicare, per person, for those with diagnosed AD. This is 2 times that of controls (Sloan, 2002).