Abstract
Objectives
To evaluate the association between health and social care costs and early start of anti-dementia medication in a nationwide cohort of Finnish Alzheimer’s disease (AD) patients.
Methods
The cohort included 7454 Finnish AD patients who had their first AD diagnosis in 2012 and lived at home at the time of diagnosis. Data were collected retrospectively from the Finnish national health and social care registers. The primary outcome was 2-year cumulative direct costs after the incident AD diagnosis. The exploratory variable was early anti-dementia medication start (anti-dementia medication started within 3 months of the incident AD diagnosis). Sociodemographic variables, admission to 24-h care and care intensity level, as well as comorbidities were considered as adjusting variables.
Results
Of all patients, 88.9% started AD medication within 3 months of diagnosis. The 2-year cumulative costs were €30,787 and €40,484 per patient for early and late starters, respectively. When adjusted for possible confounders, early start of anti-dementia medication was associated with 26.5% lower 2-year cumulative costs compared to late starters (relative cost 0.735; p < 0.001).
Conclusions
Early diagnosis and start of anti-dementia medication is important for managing the costs of increasing number of AD patients.
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Data availability
The pseudonymized, individual-level data used in this study were collected from the Finnish national health and social care registers. By the Finnish legislation, individual-level data in these registers are available for research with a research permit issued by the register holders (individual registers) or Finnish Social and Health Data Permit Authority (multiple registers). Thus, individual-level data cannot be publicly shared by the study researchers.
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Acknowledgements
The study was conducted in the ELSE research consortium, financed by the Association of Finnish Local authorities, Social Insurance Institution and Ministry of Welfare and Health. Additional financing was received from the Academy of Finland’s IMPRO project. Harlan Barker from MedEngine Oy is acknowledged for language review.
Funding
Association of Finnish Local authorities, Social Insurance Institution, Ministry of Welfare and Health, Academy of Finland’s IMPRO project.
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TY is the owner of MedEngine Oy. AV and JM are employees of MedEngine Oy. OH, IH, TM and ML have no competing interests.
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Vesikansa, A., Halminen, O., Mehtälä, J. et al. Early start of anti-dementia medication is associated with lower health and social care costs in Alzheimer´s patients: a Finnish nationwide register study. Eur J Health Econ 24, 1421–1428 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10198-022-01553-8
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10198-022-01553-8