What are the cost implications of early prescribing with cholinesterase inhibitors?
SB: The potential savings are in terms of delays to institutionalisation. There are emerging findings from the research that this may be the case. People on cholinesterase inhibitor therapy may spend more time in the community before going into residential care or may not require institutionalisation at all. The unit cost of a week in residential care is very high compared to the cost of being on cholinesterase inhibitor therapy for a year. Personally, I consider the cost to quality of life to be most important. The introduction of cholinesterase inhibitors has served to focus us on improving dementia care all round – on the treatments that we deploy, the assessments that we make, the support that we provide and the information that we give. Taken together this is of tremendous benefit for people with dementia and their carers. PP: Certainly there is evidence that therapy with cholinesterase inhibitors allows carers to spend less time supervising activities of daily living or less over
