The Economic and Social Costs of Alzheimer's Disease and Related Dementias in Ireland: an Aggregate Analysis.

This paper describes the economic and social costs of Alzheimer's disease and related dementias in Ireland. To date there have been no Irish studies on the costs of Alzheimer's disease and related disorders. Given that the proportion of elderly people in Ireland is projected to increase over the next few years, and that the occurrence of Alzheimer's disease and other dementias increases exponentially with age, information on the cost of this disease will potentially be very beneficial to researchers and policymakers alike.In this paper, costs are assessed using a burden of illness framework, whereby the distribution of costs across all the main areas of care provision is described. The impact of the disease in terms of mortality and life years lost is also included in the assessment. The annual economic and social cost of dementia is estimated to be # 247 million in 1997. An important finding is that family care accounts for almost 50 per cent of total costs. This finding highlights the crucial role of family carers in this area and the need to acknowledge their contribution through the provision of adequate support services.