A new study reveals that four non-drug interventions for dementia patients can not only improve their quality of life but also save costs.
The study, published in Alzheimer’s & Dementia: The Journal of the Alzheimer’s Association, used a computer simulation model to demonstrate that these interventions saved between $2,800 and $13,000 in societal costs and reduced nursing home admissions.
The Research
Eric Jutkowitz, an associate professor at Brown University’s School of Public Health, led the study, which focused on the following four non-drug interventions:
Maximizing Independence at Home: an at-home care coordination intervention involving care planning, skill-building, referrals to services, and care monitoring.
New York University Caregiver: implemented in an outpatient clinic, providing caregivers with six counseling sessions over four months, lifetime ad-hoc support, and access to weekly support groups.
Alzheimer’s and Dementia Care: a health care system provides individuals living with dementia and their caregivers with a needs assessment, individual care plans, and 24/7 access to a care manager.
Adult Day Service Plus: enhances adult day care services with staff providing face-to-face caregiver support, disease education, care management, skill-building, and resource referrals.
These non-pharmacological interventions, which provide tailored knowledge, skills, and support to family caregivers, have been proven to improve the quality of life for both the caregiver and the person living with dementia.
They also reduce nursing home admissions and are not associated with adverse events such as hospitalizations and mortality.
Despite their effectiveness, Jutkowitz notes that these non-drug interventions are not widely implemented in clinical care centers due to a lack of infrastructure and limited mechanisms for providers to be reimbursed for these interventions.
Key Findings and Future Work
Using computer simulation, the researchers compared the likelihood of nursing home admission for the four evidence-based Alzheimer’s and dementia non-pharmacological interventions to usual care.
They evaluated societal costs, quality-adjusted life-years, and cost-effectiveness, using data from Medicare, clinical trials, and national surveys with families of people with dementia.
The researchers found the interventions to be cost-effective from a societal perspective and involved little to no additional cost from a health care payer perspective while enhancing patient quality of life.
They concluded that health insurance policies should incentivize providers and health systems to implement non-pharmacological interventions.
Given changes in Medicare payment models and emerging Alzheimer’s therapeutics, understanding the cost-effectiveness of non-drug Alzheimer’s and dementia interventions is crucial, the researchers note.
They are also planning to design a trial testing the interventions with patients in a healthcare setting and study interventions that reduce or maintain functional decline and challenging behaviors.
If you care about dementia, please read studies about low choline intake linked to higher dementia risk, and how eating nuts can affect your cognitive ability.
For more information about brain health, please see recent studies that blueberry supplements may prevent cognitive decline, and results showing higher magnesium intake could help benefit brain health.
The study was published in Alzheimer’s & Dementia: The Journal of the Alzheimer’s Association.
Copyright © 2023 Knowridge Science Report. All rights reserved.
