

The rising health care cost of dementia

According to an article in this month’s New England Journal of Medicine, our nation’s costs of caring for people with dementia is about to skyrocket. Unfortunately, dementia is one of those diseases that is nearly universal; most elderly people eventually develop some degree of cognitive decline if they live long enough. Unlike other chronic diseases, physicians are nearly powerless to cure dementia. We have a few medications available that can slow the decline, but no pill or treatment will stop it in its tracks.

As the Baby Boomers age, we will have more and more elderly people with dementia that need to be cared for over the next generation. Shockingly, the article found that the cost attributable to dementia is from $41,000 to $56,000 annually, with the estimated total cost to the economy in the hundreds of billions of dollars range per year. When added to the rising health care costs of other chronic diseases, these numbers worry me. How will our health care system ever sustain taking care of an enormous elderly population, without going broke, and without compromising the quality of our health care?

I can only hope that Obama’s reforms to our health care system will help keep costs down by adding more money to the system via the mandate, and keeping folks healthier with its emphasis on preventative care. What are your thoughts on the issue? How should our nation deal with its aging population?

Reference: Hurd et al. N Engl J Med 2013; 368:1326-1334.

Marianne DiNapoli