While much media attention focuses on new drugs used to treat Alzheimer’s disease, a new study finds that non-drug interventions can help improve the quality of life of Alzheimer’s patients and save money.
In the study published on April 6 in Alzheimer’s & Dementia: The Journal of the Alzheimer’s Association, researchers from Brown University compared the cost effectiveness of four non-pharmacologic interventions to the usual care received by people with Alzheimer’s disease.
Using a computer simulation model, researchers found the four dementia-care interventions saved between $2,800 and $13,000 in per patient in societal costs, depending upon the type of intervention used, and also reduced nursing home admissions and improved quality of life compared to standard care.
“Dementia-care interventions that reduce nursing home admissions save societal costs compared to usual care,” the authors wrote. “Policies should incentivize providers and health systems to implement non-pharmacologic interventions.”
Lead study author Eric Jutkowitz, an associate professor at Brown University’s School of Public Health, said a number of non-drug interventions have been shown to be effective in clinical trials in improving quality of life for people with dementia and helping them stay safely at home longer. For their analysis, Jutkowitz said researchers accessed data from the government’s Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.
“Now that we can show that these effective interventions can also save money, it just makes sense to find ways to make them available to more families,” Jutkowitz said in a news release. “These interventions can be used to help people with dementia starting today.”
The four interventions studied include: Maximizing Independence at Home, an at-home, care coordination intervention that consists of care planning, skill-building, referrals to services and care monitoring; New York University Caregiver, which is implemented in an outpatient clinic and provides caregivers with six counseling sessions over four months plus lifetime ad-hoc support and access to weekly support groups; Alzheimer’s and Dementia Care, which provides people living with dementia and their caregivers a needs assessment, individual care plans and round-the-clock access to a care manager; and Adult Day Service Plus, which augments adult day care services with staff providing caregiver support, disease education, care management, skill-building and resource referrals.
Jutkowitz said while new drugs show tremendous promise in the treatment of Alzheimer’s disease, non-pharmacologic interventions like these can also have positive benefits for people living with the disease and their families.
“As the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services determine coverage for new Alzheimer’s and related dementia drugs, we strongly believe that CMS should also consider the benefits of non-pharmacologic interventions,” Jutkowitz said.
The National Institutes of Health and National Institute on Aging helped fund the study.
