The Cost of Dementia

My sister recently gave me a newspaper clipping that talked about the high cost of dementia.  The article by Karen Kaplan from the Los Angeles Times states that the cost of dementia is higher than the cost for treating people with cancer or heart disease.

What Kaplan says is true.  I've seen it in other families, and we are experiencing it ourselves.  Most people with dementia will run through their own resources very quickly.  I know that Mother's nursing home and medical costs top $50,000 a year, which is more than her income.  When people run out of money, medicaid helps with the cost, but think of what that costs our society when according to the article, 14.7 percent of Americans over the age of 70 have some type of dementia.  And medicaid does not cover the cost of dental care, or clothing.  The $30 a month allowed for personal care is minimal too.  Even with Mother's income and medicaid, the family still picks up several hundred dollars worth of expenses each month.  Kaplan says that when informal care for paying bills, buying groceries, cleaning the resident, etc are tabulated, the cost of care rises even more.

But the cost of dementia goes way beyond money. For me, despite the financial pressure of dementia, the emotional cost is even greater.  When a parent who has always been loving hits you, or curses you, the emotional toll is tremendous.  The daily grind of having to cajole the parent into brushing his teeth or keeping his clothes on grinds away at your heart.  The pain of not being recognized by your parent tears at your soul.  Watching your parent slip into the fog and not being able to hold on to them is devastating.  And families deal with this day in and day out year after year after year.

The most difficult part is that there is little to be done.  We have to pay the money, we have to brush the teeth, we have to bear the insult of being unknown to our parents, we have to move forward day by day.  We just put one foot in front of the other and take the next step.