The cost of dementia in the United States is close to trillions of dollars

According to new USC research, the hidden financial tsunami of dementia will crash unprecedented troops to a $781 billion economic burden.

This stunning figure was revealed yesterday in a multidisciplinary annual estimate led by USC, far beyond traditional accounting for medical expenses to capture the true cost of dementia to society.

“Whoever bears these costs and how changes over time can inform evidence-based policies,” said Julie Zissimopoulos, co-director of the Aging and Cognitive Program at the USC Schaeffer Center for Health Policy and Economics.

An estimated 5.6 million Americans suffer from dementia in 2025, of which 5 million are 65 years and older. In addition to direct payment of medical expenses, the effects of economic ripple effects spread outward through families and communities in ways that routine cost analysis rarely captures.

“This study demonstrates that huge dementia for patients, families and care partners are in huge dementia. But it also points to the potential value of developing the prevention and treatment of Alzheimer’s and related diseases that cause dementia.”

The biggest component of the financial burden comes from a factor that is often overlooked: the devastating quality of life of patients, worth $300.2 billion, and their care partners are $6 billion. Nursing partners provide an astonishing 6.8 billion hours of unpaid care each year, with an estimated value of $233 billion.

Healthcare costs alone are expected to reach $232 billion this year. Medicare bears the heaviest institutional burden, with a burden of $1006 billion, followed by Medicaid of $58 billion. Meanwhile, patients and families will pay $52 billion directly from bags.

For families who have been extended by care responsibilities, the financial burden often includes another hidden cost: $8.2 billion in losses from those who reduce working hours or leave work altogether to provide care.

The new cost model represents a significant advancement in understanding the economic impact of dementia, funded through a multi-year partnership agreement with the National Institute of Aging. The researchers used data from several large national surveys and administrative health records from Medicare and Medicaid to create comprehensive accounting using dynamic microsimulation techniques.

USC Schaeffer Institute in the project, this study demonstrates the potential value of huge passive dementia for patients, families and care partners in ways that prevent and treat dementia. ”

The timing of this study coincides with the rapid development of dementia care, including new therapeutic therapies that have been reduced in cognitive decline and innovative blood tests in some early stages of Alzheimer’s patients, thus enabling early detection.

Moving forward, the USC team aims to provide tools to help researchers and policy makers understand how evolving treatment, prevention strategies and policies affect the costs of healthcare systems and society as a whole. Their approach stands out in a multidisciplinary collaboration, bringing together experts from USC schools with partners from the Alzheimer’s Association and the University of Pennsylvania.

Perhaps most importantly, the team regularly consults with patients and care partners to ensure their models reflect the real reality of families in the devastating journey of dementia, which is now measured in hundreds of billions of dollars, and human costs are still not possible.

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