Originally published July 12 2005
Cost of dementia estimated at $156 billion; spurs call for increased funding of research
by Mike Adams, the Health Ranger, NaturalNews Editor
A team of researchers has estimated the cost of Alzheimer's disease and dementia at $156 billion, reports Medical News Net; a number which has scientists, advocates and those affected by the disease calling for increased funding for research in the field.
The first estimate of the worldwide direct costs of Alzheimer's disease and dementia care was released at the Alzheimer's Association International Conference on the Prevention of Dementia.
As a result, scientists, advocates and those affected by the disease are calling for increased funding for research and support services.
Either increase funding for Alzheimer's disease research to fend off this looming public health disaster, or sit back and wait for it to overwhelm the healthcare systems in the U.S. and throughout the world."
The bill, named after President Reagan who passed away from Alzheimer's in 2004, authorizes Congress to double federal funding for Alzheimer's disease research to $1.4 billion annually.
The worldwide costs of dementia were estimated from prevalence figures for the different regions and cost-of-illness studies from key countries.
The researchers used a model based on the relationship between direct costs of care per demented individual and the gross domestic product (GDP) per capita in each country.
"It is of great interest for policy makers to have a view of how costs of dementia are distributed worldwide, and therefore we have tried to make a worldwide estimate," Winblad said.
"Since detailed national data are lacking from many countries, we based our cost estimate on an assumed relationship between the GDP per capita and direct costs of dementia care.
Due to several sources of uncertainty, the range of cost estimates is relatively wide.
However, the relative lack of precision should not obscure the fact that these are huge sums of money and, according to current population and prevalence estimates, these sums will continue to grow.
"Even among the advanced economies there is a great range in how dementia care is provided, due to differences in family patterns, traditions, economic strength, care organization and financing.
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