The full cost implications of dementia are not known because insufficient research has been carried out, Mr Joe Durkan, director of the centre of health economics and lecturer in economics at University College Dublin told the conference yesterday.
"We don't know the full costs of caring for people suffering from dementia and, as a result, we don't know what are the most economically efficient ways of organising our services. And, of course, we cannot properly plan for the future," he said.
We needed to know how much it cost to deal with dementia and where the burden of care fell, "especially given that the number of people being affected by the disease is going to rise because of the increasing number of elderly in our society. Currently one person in 20 in the over-65 age cohort in Ireland is affected by dementia. "It is expected that by 2020, nearly 15 per cent of the Irish population will be over 65," he said.
Mr Durkan said a proper estimate of the burden of care would need to cover all aspects of informal care and not just official or State care. "In addition, indirect costs in terms of quality of life issues and the knock-on effects of the disease must also be taken into account."
Such research would not be straightforward. A large part of the cost was being borne by carers and was not easy to calculate. In addition, on the State side, the costs of treating dementia were spread across a range of agencies and departments.
Mr Durkan said the only way to conduct research into the cost of dementia would be to track one group of people with the disease over a period of years.