Economic Impact of Dementia by Disease Severity: Exploring the Relationship between Stage of Dementia and Cost of Care in Taiwan

نویسندگان

  • Li-Jung Elizabeth Ku
  • Ming-Chyi Pai
  • Pei-Yu Shih
  • Sonia Brucki
چکیده

OBJECTIVE Given the shortage of cost-of-illness studies in dementia outside of the Western population, the current study estimated the annual cost of dementia in Taiwan and assessed whether different categories of care costs vary by severity using multiple disease-severity measures. METHODS This study included 231 dementia patient-caregiver dyads in a dementia clinic at a national university hospital in southern Taiwan. Three disease measures including cognitive, functional, and behavioral disturbances were obtained from patients based on medical history. A societal perspective was used to estimate the total costs of dementia according to three cost sub-categories. The association between dementia severity and cost of care was examined through bivariate and multivariate analyses. RESULTS Total costs of care for moderate dementia patient were 1.4 times the costs for mild dementia and doubled from mild to severe dementia among our community-dwelling dementia sample. Multivariate analysis indicated that functional declines had a greater impact on all cost outcomes as compared to behavioral disturbance, which showed no impact on any costs. Informal care costs accounted for the greatest share in total cost of care for both mild (42%) and severe (43%) dementia patients. CONCLUSIONS Since the total costs of dementia increased with severity, providing care to delay disease progression, with a focus on maintaining patient physical function, may reduce the overall cost of dementia. The greater contribution of informal care to total costs as opposed to social care also suggests a need for more publicly-funded long-term care services to assist family caregivers of dementia patients in Taiwan.

برای دانلود رایگان متن کامل این مقاله و بیش از 32 میلیون مقاله دیگر ابتدا ثبت نام کنید

ثبت نام

اگر عضو سایت هستید لطفا وارد حساب کاربری خود شوید

منابع مشابه

Relationship between Psychological, Social and Educational Needs with General Health among Informal Caregivers of the Elderly with Dementia

Introduction: The family plays a crucial role in supporting vulnerable older adults and is considered an essential but hidden element in the health care system. This study determined the relationship between psychological, social, and educational needs with general health among informal (family) caregivers of the elderly with dementia. Methods: In this descriptive correlational study, among al...

متن کامل

The Relationship Between Spiritual Well-Being and Care Burden in Unofficial Caregivers of Elderly Patients With Dementia

Objectives: Dementia is a common disease in the elderly and imposes a heavy care burden on family members. Many factors can be associated with care burden. One of these factors can be the caregivers’ Spiritual Well-Being (SWB). This study aimed to examine the relationship between SWB and care burden in caregivers of dementia patients. Methods: This correlational study was conducted on 60 careg...

متن کامل

Relationship Between Neuropsychological and Physical Environmental Perception in Patients With Dementia and Alzheimer Disease

Objectives The current study examines the features of the physical environment affecting environmental perception and tries to explain paradigm of architecture based on the neuropsychological features. This paper investigates the relationship between the two aspects of the physical and neuropsychological environment in the patients with dementia Alzheimer’s type in order to meet the needs of th...

متن کامل

Relationship of Retinal Nerve Fibers Layer Thickness with Mild Cognitive Impairment and Alzheimer's Dementia

Background and Objective: In this study, the thickness of the retinal nerve fibers layer(RNFL) was compared among patients with mild cognitive impairment, Alzheimer's dementia, and healthy individuals (controls) using Optical Coherence Tomography (OCT) device. Materials and Methods: This case-control study was conducted on 30 patients diagnosed with mild cognitive impairment and 31 healthy sub...

متن کامل

Chronic Cold-Water-Induced Hypothermia Impairs Memory Retrieval and Nepeta menthoides as a Traditional “Hot” Herb Reverses the Impairment

Iranian Traditional Medicine (ITM) describes a kind of dementia with similar signs and symptoms of Alzheimer’s disease (AD). It explains the pathology of dementia with cold intemperament of the brain, which means that the brain is colder than its healthy form. ITM strategy for treatment of dementia is to heat the brain up by medical “hot” herbs. Nepeta menthoides (NM) is one of these “hot” herb...

متن کامل

ذخیره در منابع من


  با ذخیره ی این منبع در منابع من، دسترسی به آن را برای استفاده های بعدی آسان تر کنید

عنوان ژورنال:

دوره 11  شماره 

صفحات  -

تاریخ انتشار 2016