Dementia Is Getting Really, Really Expensive

The Takeaway

Think about this:  Nearly 15 percent of people aged 71 or older, about 3.8 million people, have dementia. That’s according to a disturbing new study by the Rand Corporation. By 2040, that number will balloon to 9.1 million people. And the direct health care expenses for dementia, including nursing home care, were $109 billion in 2010.
Hey people are old, you say, and they cost more to treat. But heart disease and cancer, traditional health worries in old age, are well below the costs of dealing with dementia. For cancer, its just $77 billion annually.
Each case of dementia costs $41,000 to $56,000 a year, according to Rand, and the total costs of dementia care will more than double by 2040, to a range of $379 billion to $511 billion.  How you feeling about retirement now?
David Shenk is the author of “The Forgetting: Alzheimer’s Portrait of An Epidemic” and a senior advisor to  Cure Alzheimer’s Fund. Dr. Richard Hodes  is the director of the National Institute on Aging at the National Institutes of Health.

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