The clinical and economic burden among caregivers of patients with Alzheimer's disease in Canada

Abstract

Objective To estimate the clinical and direct medical economic burden among Alzheimer disease (AD) caregivers using real‐world, longitudinal patient‐level data in Canada. Methods/Design This retrospective observational study assessed the clinical and direct medical economic burden among individuals who cohabitate with AD patients (“AD caregiver cohort”) compared with older adults who were cohabiting with another adult without dementia (“comparison cohort”) using real‐world data from the Southwestern Ontario database, a representative Canadian electronic health record (EHR) longitudinal EHR. Results The AD caregiver cohort (n = 2749; mild AD: n = 2254, moderate AD: n = 302, and severe AD, n = 193) had a similar or higher level of clinical and economic burden than the comparison cohort (n = 12 152). The overall AD cohort and caregivers of patients with mild AD had a similar clinical burden to the comparison cohort. Those caregiving for more severely affected AD patients had an increased risk of comorbidities and required more medication, physician attention, and hospital encounters compared with caregivers of less severe AD patients and the comparison cohort. Mean annual costs were higher among the AD caregiver cohort than the comparison cohort, and those caregiving for moderate and severe AD patients incurred the highest costs. Overall mortality was higher in the AD caregiver cohort compared with the comparison cohort. Conclusions Caregivers of patients with mild AD had a similar clinical and direct economic burden to older adults who were not dementia caregivers, whereas the burden among caregivers of moderate and severe AD patients was much greater.

The clinical, economic, and humanistic burden of Dravet syndrome – A systematic literature review

“…Similar to findings of a recent systematic review of the burden and health impacts among DS caregivers, we found that most data on caregiving burden are qualitatively-and self-reported [78], with no clinician-assessed studies of caregiver health impacts identified. Studies in other therapeutic areas have demonstrated that caregiver health is negatively affected by caregiving demands [115,116] and studies to characterize this more accurately would be of value in DS.…”

A Literature Review on the Burden of Alzheimer’s Disease on Care Partners

“…Thirty-seven reported data from Asia [27, 34, 35, 49, 51, 52, 54, 56-59, 63, 65, 67, 73, 83-87, 98, 99, 104, 109, 112, 113, 125, 142, 143, 146, 156, 157, 159, 164, 165, 170]. Thirty-two studies reported data from the US [29, 32, 33, 42, 45, 46, 53, 60, 62, 71, 72, 91-94, 97, 101, 103, 106, 114, 124, 127, 139, 141, 145, 148, 149, 152, 161, 163, 167, 174], and four studies reported data from Canada [30,44,140,158]. Fewer studies reported data from Australia (two [37,61]) and South America (eight [38,40,55,64,76,77,160,173]).…”

Care load and affecting factors of alzheimer patients

“…16,17 Caregivers at lower educational levels are more likely to experience burden, as the risk of developing stress symptoms is likely to be higher. 17,18 Working status It has been seen that caregivers have had to quit their jobs or reduce the time they devote to their work to a great extent because of their caregiving responsibilities. It is stated that while working caregivers are trying to maintain not only business life but also family life, they have to do the third shift for the patient and they cannot allocate enough time for themselves.…”