Patients with Alzheimer’s disease and related dementias who have delirium during a hospital visit have additional one-year costs of $34,828 compared to those who don’t experience delirium, a new study finds.
Investigators analyzed Medicare costs determined prospectively at discharge, and then at 30, 90 and 365 days among 311 hospitalized older adults. Of these patients, 76 (24%) had Alzheimer’s disease or related dementias. The patients with ADRD were more likely to develop delirium and to die within a year, they found.
Delirium during a hospital stay was associated with excess healthcare costs for all study participants. But among patients with ADRD and delirium, most of the added costs were incurred between 90 and 365 days, and increased progressively throughout the year relative to costs incurred by their peers without delirium.
In contrast, the parallel increase in costs for patients without ADRD who did or did not experience delirium was consistent throughout the year, reported Sharon K. Inouye, MD, MPH, of Harvard Medical School and colleagues.
“Our findings highlight the complexity of healthcare costs for ADRD patients who develop delirium, a potentially preventable source of expenditures,” they concluded.
The study was published in the journal Alzheimer’s & Dementia.
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