Caregiving

Dr. Coe spoke at the 2019 Milken Institute Global Conference on the price of dementia. Dr. Coe’s comments focused on the effect that Alzheimer’s disease and related dementias have on individuals and their families and how this then affects our economy.

Providing unpaid care for an older parent has costs that go well beyond a caregiver’s lost wages. A new estimate suggests that the median direct and indirect costs of caregiving are $180,000 over two years, about the same as full-time institutional care. This estimate accounts for lost earnings as well as non-tangible factors, such as lost leisure time and changes to the caregiver’s well-being. It suggests that informal care cost caregivers at least $277 billion in 2011, which is 20 percent higher than estimates that only consider lost wages.