Alzheimer’s costs triple
The health care costs of Alzheimer’s disease patients in the United State of America are more than triple those of other older people, and that doesn’t even include the billions of hours of unpaid care from family members, a new report suggests.
Compared with people aged 65 and older without Alzheimer’s, those with the mind-destroying disease are much more often hospitalized and treated in skilled-nursing centres.
Their medical costs also often include nursing home care and American Medicare-covered home health visits.
That all adds up to at least $33,007 in annual costs per patient, compared with $10,603 for an older person without Alzheimer’s, according to a report by the Alzheimer’s Association.