We performed this study together with the European Academy of Neurology, which funded this study. And we not only investigated dementia, but also another 11 neurological disorders like Parkinson’s disease, headache, and so on. But one of the major diseases we investigated is dementia in Europe. And we calculated a large number attributed to the disease, which is about 220 billion euros per year in the 47 EAN member states...
We performed this study together with the European Academy of Neurology, which funded this study. And we not only investigated dementia, but also another 11 neurological disorders like Parkinson’s disease, headache, and so on. But one of the major diseases we investigated is dementia in Europe. And we calculated a large number attributed to the disease, which is about 220 billion euros per year in the 47 EAN member states. And for sure, we wanted to know what are the main cost drivers and the main cost drivers are the indirect costs and no, sorry, the costs due to informal care and direct costs. Informal care is very high in our study with about 58% and 42% of direct costs. So the indirect costs are low because most of the patients, they start with the disease after 65 years of age. So the indirect costs, which are costs due to loss of work or reducing the workload, are over 65. Yes, in our study, we had a large number of patients which were over 65. So the indirect costs are low. As you may see, this is a high societal burden with 220 billion in Europe, and it’s high in every country we investigated. So I think policy or the politicians have to think about what we will do because the number of patients will increase. As you know, in Germany, at least, there’s the term “baby boomers”, which are the children born between about 1956 and 1974. And we have a large peak of people born at that time. And the problem is that they are now going into the age of getting Alzheimer’s disease or dementia. And that’s a really major problem until 2050. Until 2050, it will become easier because the people will be dying at that time point. The other problem is that we have low birth rates. So we don’t have enough doctors and enough nurses, as you may have heard from other sources. And this is the problem. How do we deal with these older people when they get dementia?
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