Project information
Health and Economic Outcomes of Early Dementia Diagnosis: Understanding the Role of Comorbidities

Project Identification
NW24J-07-00064
Project Period
5/2024 - 12/2027
Investor / Pogramme / Project type
Ministry of Health of the CR
MU Faculty or unit
Faculty of Economics and Administration
Keywords
Alzheimer's disease, Dementia, Health economics, Cost-effectiveness, Public health, Quality of life, Early diagnosis, Comorbidities, Economic evaluation, Health policy, Dementia risk factors, Healthcare registries, Healthcare consumption
Cooperating Organization
Nationa Institute of Mental Health

Introduction: Contemporary medicine cannot stop or reverse dementia, but early interventions mitigate and delay its impact on daily functioning. As these interventions also help people with dementia (PWD) to keep paying sufficient attention to their comorbidities and medication intake, they may reduce health problems that get primarily attributed to other diseases. Disregarding this hidden effect underestimates the true health and economic gain of intervening early.

Objective: To investigate the effect of dementia diagnosis timing on comorbidities, healthcare utilization, costs, and health-related quality of life.

Methods: Working with Czech Brain Aging Study, Amsterdam Dementia Cohort and Swedish Dementia Registry, we will link individual clinical data about PWD with administrative healthcare registers to gather longitudinal information on the disease stage at diagnosis, disease progression, and healthcare utilization. We will further collect data on quality of life, social and informal care to complement the existing data. We will estimate generalized linear mixed models to quantify the annual difference in healthcare utilization, costs and quality of life according to the diagnosis timing. A qualitative study consisting of semi-structured interviews with PWD-caregiver pairs will tap their personal experience. A microsimulation model will be developed to assesses how stratification of health and economic outcomes according to diagnosis timing impacts cost-effectiveness of timely dementia diagnosis, and to evaluate cost-effectiveness of national policies to prevent and treat dementia.

Relevance: The project identifies and quantifies a neglected, yet potentially preventable, impact of dementia on comorbidities that is detrimental to PWD and burdensome to the healthcare system. A combination of analysis based on quantitative data and a lived experience of PWD and their caregivers brings comprehensive insights for clinical practice and dementia policies.

Sustainable Development Goals

Masaryk University is committed to the UN Sustainable Development Goals, which aim to improve the conditions and quality of life on our planet by 2030.

Sustainable Development Goal No.  3 – Good health and well-being

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