Dementia costs Belgium €4.1 billion a year

Dementia is estimated to cost Belgian society 4.1 billion euros a year. Almost 60 per cent of this is attributable to unpaid care provided by partners, family members, friends and other informal carers. This is according to a new international study published in the *Journal of Alzheimer’s Disease*, to which Prof. Dr Sebastiaan Engelborghs of UZ Brussel and the Vrije Universiteit Brussel also contributed.

The study forms part of the European ‘Cost of Illness in Neurology in Europe’ project – COIN-Eu for short – run by the European Academy of Neurology. The international research team combined data from 45 European cost studies with prevalence figures from the Global Burden of Disease study.

In 2019, an estimated 8.8 million people were living with dementia in the thirty high-income European countries surveyed. The total annual societal cost amounted to 221.4 billion euros. Informal care accounted for 58 per cent of that figure.

Informal care accounts for the largest share of Belgian costs

For Belgium, the researchers estimate that around 196,000 people were living with dementia in 2019. The annual societal cost was estimated at 4.14 billion euros, or an average of 21,200 euros per person with dementia. This corresponds to approximately 1.1 per cent of Belgium’s gross domestic product.

Of the total Belgian cost, approximately 2.48 billion euros was attributable to informal care. This refers to unpaid care provided by partners, family members, friends and other informal carers, and may include, for example, help with washing, dressing, eating or taking medication; shopping, transport and administrative tasks, … Direct costs, including medical and non-medical professional care, were estimated at 1.67 billion euros. Costs arising from lost productivity accounted for only a small proportion.

Investing in treatment and support

The societal impact of dementia extends beyond the financial cost. Long-term informal care can also take its toll on the physical and mental health, social life and professional activities of relatives.

According to the researchers, the growing impact of dementia therefore calls for a comprehensive approach. In addition to timely and accurate diagnosis, prevention and research into new treatments, accessible home care, psychosocial support, and training and support for carers remain essential.

New disease-modifying treatments for Alzheimer’s disease can slow the progression of the condition at an early stage. Whether they consequently also reduce societal costs in later stages of the disease was not directly investigated in this study. The researchers emphasise that further research using data from real-world practice is needed to address this.