Treatment and care for patients with dementia costs the Americans at least $ 157 billion a year, which makes this disease more expensive than cancer and cardiovascular diseases.

These impressive figures were released by RAND Corporation, a non-profit organization that helps improve policy in the field of medical decision-making.

More information on this can be found in the latest issue of the New England Journal of Medicine.

Dementia is a progressive loss of cognitive skills, which usually occurs in old age and affects the ability of patients to live independently and take care of themselves.

Dementia occurs with Alzheimer's disease and many other neurological diseases.

The lion's share of costs for dementia is not in medicine or medical care, but in caring for patients in special institutions or at home. The RAND study has become the largest work in recent years, shedding light on the true price that Americans pay for dementia.

The incidence of dementia is increasing steadily with age. Experts believe that the financial costs associated with this disease will double by 2040, if the incidence of the disease remains the same, and life expectancy in the US will continue to grow.

Michael Hurd, lead researcher and chief economist at RAND, says: "The economic burden that lies on our country in connection with dementia continues to grow year by year. Our results underscore the need for urgent state measures. Something must be done to stop the spread of dementia in American society ".

The Alzheimer's Association (AA) previously reported lower costs than in the current study.

This is due to the fact that a new study:.

• Includes the cost of treatment for dementia-related diseases.

• Uses more advanced statistical methods.

• Mindful of the varying severity of dementia.

In 2010, about 14.7% of Americans over the age of 71 suffered from dementia. Total economic losses due to this disease amounted to 157 to 215 billion dollars, if included in this amount, all costs for treatment and care of patients. Such different numbers are explained by two different methods that researchers used. If you divide this amount by the number of patients, you will get from $ 56,290 to $ 41,689 per year per person. From 75% to 84% of this money goes to the maintenance of patients in specialized institutions or care at home.

NAPA (National Alzheimer's Project Act), signed by Obama in 2011, requires more active study of new ways of treating patients with dementia. He also calls on experts to undertake a detailed economic assessment of the effects of dementia on the US.

Michael Hurd concluded:

"Today there are no signs that this amount in the coming years will decrease. In the United States, more people are getting older than 85, so despite the medical measures, the number of patients with dementia continues to increase ".

By the way, the British report from 2010 showed that the economic damage from dementia for the UK economy was 2 times higher than the damage from cancer, but research in the field of treating dementia is much worse financed.

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