The cost of caring for dementia patients during their last five years of life far exceeds other disorders like cancer or heart disease, according to a New York Times study.
"It is very expensive," said Helen Johnston, 70. "More than what the average person can pay for."
Johnston is taking care of her husband, Edward Johnston, 79, who was diagnosed with vascular dementia. The Tampa couple said they're already worried about the future cost of care.
"Now that we’re just more or less on social security and stuff like that, it don’t go very far," Edward said.
"It’s either going to be getting help or doing without a lot of stuff that we probably need," Helen said. "Like house insurance or something like that, in order to pay for it and it’s just not really fair."
The average cost of care for a person with dementia over those last five years was $287,038. For a patient who died of heart disease it was $175,136. For a cancer patient it was $173,383, according to the New York Times. Medicare paid almost the same amount for patients with each of those diseases - close to $100,000 - but dementia patients had many more expenses that were not covered, according to the report.
Dr. Erfan Albakri is the director of the Florida Neurovascular Institute in Tampa. The stroke neurologist is Johnston's doctor and said dementia costs are high because it's a chronic disorder that patients can live with for a long time.
"There is a cost of taking care of a patient with dementia. They require more time," Albakri said. "They require more resources and the patients and the family in most cases because they have many, many, years of services that are required to care for them. They have to carry some of the cost.”
On average, the out-of-pocket cost for a patient with dementia was $61,522 — more than 80 percent higher than the cost for someone with heart disease or cancer, according to the report.