The cost of the last five years of life is more than 50 percent higher for people with dementia than those who die of other diseases such as cancer and heart disease, a recent survey of patient records revealed.
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Families may consider long term care insurance to cover this gap in Medicare benefits, Lachs said by email.
The study was published Monday in the Annals of Internal Medicine.
For families, out-of-pocket spending for those with dementia was $61,522 compared to $34,068 for those without dementia.
In addition to costing more across the board, out-of-pocket spending for patients with dementia is 81 percent higher than for people with other diseases. according to the study, conducted by the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, Dartmouth College and University of California, Los Angeles and funded by the National Institute on Aging.
Using data from 1,702 Medicare recipients 70 or older who died between 2005 and 2010, researchers found that the average cost of caring for those with dementia in the last five years of life was $287,038, compared with $175,136 for those who died of heart disease, $173,383 for those who died of cancer, or $197,286 for those who died of other causes. Spending was $183,000 for others. They calculated costs from Medicare, Medicaid, private insurance, out-of-pocket spending and informal care. The financial burden as a proportion of wealth was even more pronounced for patients who were black, had less than a high school education, or were unmarried or widowed women. These patients also need constant supervision to make sure that they do not roam around alone or harm themselves.
In comparison, other chronic disorders don’t place such financial burden on individuals, and are covered to a larger extent by insurance.
Here are five things to know about the cost of dementia, as presented by The New York Times.
There are limitations regarding this research however, such as the fact that study authors have had to estimate the likelihood of the subjects having had dementia, and this leaves room for errors.
Nevertheless, the findings still emphasize how significant end-of-life costs can be for those affected by Alzheimer’s and other irreversible brain disorders.
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Potential solutions in order to diminish this burden might be opting for long-term care insurance, or providing financial aid to family members who act as dementia caregivers.
