A new study is uncovering just how tough it can be financially to live with dementia. The report, published Dec. 29 in the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society, found that almost 56% of people with dementia face financial hardships. Those financial challenges are linked with worse reported satisfaction with life and healthcare.
Researchers used data from the Health and Retirement Study, which includes adults aged more than 52 years and spans 2010 to 2020. The study examined data from 534 participants with dementia who shared details on satisfaction with their lives and their healthcare. The researchers compared those data to information from questionnaires from 576 people with newly diagnosed cancer who were receiving treatment.
The people were asked about financial strain in the past year of their lives and whether it was upsetting; they also were asked whether it was difficult to pay their bills. The data were compared with information from a previous study, which included information from the same people.
According to the findings, 56% of people living with dementia said that they experienced financial hardship, compared with 50.4% of people with cancer. Differences existed between groups in terms of the age of disease onset; an earlier diagnosis was linked to a higher proportion of financial hardship.
In the dementia group, people who experienced financial hardship in the previous study were less likely to report being completely or very satisfied with life and less likely to say they were satisfied with their healthcare compared with people who didn’t report financial hardship in the previous report. Results were similar in the group of people who had cancer.
People living with dementia may have more intense financial hardship than those with cancer, the authors contended. This situation could be because the costs are incurred for longer periods of time, especially if a person receives a dementia diagnosis at a young age. The more severe hardships also could be due to the lack of long-term care insurance to assist with getting treatment for dementia.
Medicare and private insurance do not cover most long-term care services, the authors noted. Although Medicaid and private long-term care insurances do cover most such services, Medicaid coverage among adults 65+ is very low, at 7.6%, and only approximately 10% of adults have such insurance. Most older adults assume the expenses on an out-of-pocket basis, the authors added.
This article originally appeared on McKnight's Long-Term Care News
