Cost of Treatment and Care for People with Alzheimer's Disease: A Meta-Analysis

There is now a general attempt in developed countries to implement strategic plans to fight against Alzheimer's disease, for which treatment represents an increasing economic burden for the ageing society. At present, the costs of treatment and care for Alzheimer's Disease (AD) patients are not consistently tracked and logged, therefore, the economic burden is calculated based on the records kept by individual countries. The aim of this paper is to conduct a meta-analysis of the available data on the total costs of treatment and care for elderly AD patients with respect to the stage of the disease determined by the Mini Mental State Examination (MMSE). The Web of Science and PubMed databases were used for a systematic search. Two independent reviewers screened the identified records and selected relevant articles published in the period from 2007 to 2017. A meta-analysis of costs is performed in three categories related to the stages of Alzheimer's disease (mild, moderate, and severe). The resulting estimation of total costs per patient per year determined by the meta-analysis is 20,461$ total costs. The total costs in relation to the stage of the disease according to the MMSE scale are 14,675 $ for the mild stage, 19,975 $ for the moderate stage, and 29,708 $ for the severe stage. The meta-analysis confirms that the costs rise significantly with the severity of AD. These findings therefore, emphasize the severity of the economic burden carried out by the AD patients, their families, and the healthcare system, and this fact must be taken into account when planning health policy strategies for the years to come.