Costs of residential dementia care
The INSPIRED study provides the first estimate of the ‘whole-of-system’ costs of providing health and residential care for people living in residential aged care in Australia using individual level health and social care data. This approach to estimating costs indicates that previous, more limited cost perspectives underestimate the costs associated with caring for people living with dementia in permanent residential care.
The average annual whole-of-system cost for people living with dementia in residential care was approximately AU$88 000 per person in 2016, with the cost of residential care comprising the bulk of the total costs. The direct health care costs were comprised mainly of hospital admissions, pharmaceuticals and out-of-hospital attendances. While total costs were not significantly different between those with and without dementia, the cost of residential care was significantly higher and the cost of health care was significantly lower for people living with dementia.
Summary for industry
Publications
Direct health and residential care costs of people living with dementia in Australian residential aged care
Gnanamanickam ES, Dyer SM, Milte R, Harrison SL, Liu E, Easton T, Bradley C, Bilton R, Shulver W, Ratcliffe J, Whitehead C, Crotty M. (2018) International Journal of Geriatric Psychiatry; 1-8.