According to the study, burden was defined as healthy years lost and years of life lost because of cognitive impairment. Findings showed that each patient experienced a lifetime burden of about $124K. In aggregate, the burden was about $627B. These numbers were split between cognitive impairment from Alzheimer's disease and related dementias (59%) and mild cognitive impairment (41%). Burden was higher among patients with early onset cognitive impairment and minorities.
The authors emphasized that their numbers show that the financial challenges of cognitive impairment are higher than previous studies of other diseases like obesity and diabetes.
