Effectiveness and cost-effectiveness of the pharmacological treatment of Alzheimer's disease and vascular dementia.

Until an effective and especially disease-modifying treatment for Alzheimer's disease (AD) and vascular dementia (VaD) is available, the currently available pharmacological therapeutic arsenal aims at merely improving symptomatology. Health economic data make an important contribution to the planning of healthcare services and the estimation of the cost of drug reimbursement. As such, both for cholinesterase inhibitors and, to a lesser extent, for memantine it can be claimed that the direct cost of the drug itself is eclipsed by the cost savings associated with delaying institutionalization or delaying the time of progression into a more severe disease state. The present manuscript reviews several factors contributing to the costs of dementia, gives an overview of available studies claiming both the effectiveness and cost-effectiveness of current dementia treatments, and highlights strengths and weaknesses of the aforementioned studies.