Burden of illness in Parkinson's disease

Abstract

This study quantifies direct medical care costs for individual patients with Parkinson's disease (PD) and projects total national costs of PD. Anonymous, patient-level data on health care utilization and cost were obtained from Medstat's MarketScan Research Databases. Patients were selected for study if they had either two instances of a diagnosis of PD or one diagnosis and two or more prescriptions for PD-related medication. A control group of persons without PD was selected for comparison. Total annual health care utilization and costs were calculated for both PD patients and controls. A total of 20,016 patients with PD were identified and followed up for an average of 853 days. The mean age of the patients was 73.6 years, and 51.2% were women. Total annual direct costs were 23,101 US Dollars (SD 27,529) per patient with PD versus 11,247 US Dollars (SD 16,486) for controls. The regression-adjusted incremental direct cost of PD versus control was 10,349 US Dollars (95% confidence interval, 9,053, 11,645). Adding 25,326 US Dollars in indirect costs, and multiplying by 645,000 cases of PD in the United States, the total cost to the nation is projected to be 23 billion US Dollars annually. This estimate is higher than most previous studies, with important implications for health care delivery systems worldwide.

Pimavanserin tartrate: a 5-HT2A inverse agonist with potential for treating various neuropsychiatric disorders

“…Like schizophrenia, the economic burden of PD is high -a study comparing 20,000 PD patients to controls produced an estimated cost of $23 billion annually using data from 2002 [28] . Another study showed that PD is associated with large direct economic costs to society [29] .…”

A novel design of a Phase III trial of isradipine in early Parkinson disease (STEADY‐PD III)

“…The economic burden of PD is estimated to be $23 billion annually in US and projected to increase to $50 billion by year 2040 3. Current therapy is limited to symptomatic treatment; however, the disease continues to progress with accumulation of significant disability, worsening quality of life, reduced productivity, nursing home placement, and increased mortality 4. Attempts to slow or modify disease progression in PD have resulted in mixed outcomes and no treatment has yet to definitively demonstrate disease modification (see Table 1 for recent disease‐modifying trials) 5, 6, 7, 8.…”

Palliative care for patients with Parkinson’s disease: an interdisciplinary review and next step model

“…This number is only to increase as the world population ages. 1 In addition to the increasing number of PD patients to be seen in neurology clinics for specialized care, the patients themselves also develop increasing needs at later stages of disease. Initially, patient care is usually focused on motor symptoms, including tremors, postural instability, gait, and rigidity.…”