Treatment Strategies: An Evaluation of the Impact of Potential Preventative and Therapeutic Interventions on Costs of Alzheimer's Disease

• Activity Number: 587
• Type: Contributed
• Date/Time: Wednesday, August 4, 2010 : 2:00 PM to 3:50 PM
• Sponsor: Health Policy Statistics Section
• Author(s): Elizabeth Colantuoni*+ and Ron Brookmeyer
• Companies: The Johns Hopkins University and University of California, Los Angeles
• Keywords: cost-effectiveness ; multi-stage disease model ; targeted treatment strategies

Abstract

With the predicted increase in the prevalence of Alzheimer's disease in the coming decades, the associated health care costs are forecast to be staggering. We extended the multi-stage incidence to prevalence disease model proposed by Brookmeyer, et al (2007) to predict costs and the impact of interventions designed to delay disease onset or progression. The interventions can be targeted to subpopulations defined by risk factors such as age or apolipoprotein E4. We estimate that delaying disease onset by an average of 1 year starting in 2015 can result in savings of 10% annually by 2025. If disease progression could also be delayed 1 year on average, targeted prevention based on age and a risk factor can significantly reduce costs. The exact savings are dependent on the relative costs of treating and caring for persons with AD and characteristics of the risk factor.