The High Cost of Alzheimer's

There is no doubt that caring for someone with Alzheimer's can be physically and emotionally draining -- but we don't often talk about the drain on your wallet. This AARP piece talks about the cost of caring for a loved one with the disease. Here's a snippet:
The Shriver Report: A Woman's Nation Takes on Alzheimer's interviewed caregivers of people with Alzheimer's or other forms of dementia and found the average cost of care for an Alzheimer's patient is $56,800 per year. Sixty percent of that average cost -- $34,500 per year -- is covered by caregivers and the rest of the family themselves. The bulk of this is in the form of uncompensated care, but the out-of-pocket costs to the family add up -- an average of $7,259 per year.
The family of a patient living independently or with an informal caregiver pays about $850 a year in related costs. But once that loved one is moved to a health care facility, the families' costs skyrocket to $20,535 per year, according to the Shriver Report. This money goes toward adult day care, nursing home, assisted living and paid caregivers such as companions and home health aides. And that care can go on for years -- one-third of caregivers have been in their role for more than five years, says the report.
Read the rest here, as well as some solutions people are working on to ease these high costs for care.