Developments in Brief : Alzheimer’s Cost to U.S. $27 Billion Yearly

Alzheimer’s disease, a degenerative and fatal brain disease that primarily affects the elderly, costs between $27 billion and $31 billion each year in the United States, according to the first comprehensive study of the economic toll of the ailment.

The research was published in the September issue of the American Journal of Public Health by Joel Hay, a senior research fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University, and Richard Ernst of Ernst Associates.

“Unless breakthroughs can be achieved in preventing the disease,” the article warned, “the number of persons having Alzheimer’s is likely to grow dramatically over the next few decades along with the growth of the elderly population.”

The researchers estimated that at least 337,000 people are diagnosed with Alzheimer’s annually in the United States.

The cause is unknown and no cure has been found. The disease, which impairs the memory and gradually leads to complete incompetence, is usually fatal within five to eight years.

Hay said caring for an Alzheimer’s victim means direct costs of about $9,600 in the first year after diagnosis and about $8,700 in each subsequent year. Indirect costs account for another $8,900 annually, he said.

Direct costs include diagnosis, nursing-home care, long-term mental hospital care, short-term acute hospital care, physicians’ services, drugs and travel. Indirect costs arise from home care provided by the family.

Hay and Ernst noted that most insurance plans offer only “modest” coverage of costs arising from Alzheimer’s.