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By Melissa Fleur Afshar
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Alzheimer's disease and related dementias will cost the U.S. an estimated $818 billion in 2026, according to a new USC-led study, with the bulk of that toll coming from often-overlooked burdens on patients and the family members who care for them.
The figure comes from the U.S. Cost of Dementia project, a federally funded research effort using dynamic microsimulation modeling to produce nationally representative, year-by-year estimates of dementia's economic impact. Unlike many previous estimates, the model accounts for diminished quality of life, lost earnings, and unpaid caregiving, in addition to standard medical and long-term care spending.
Dr. Julia Cooney, a medical doctor, brain health researcher and founder of Prema Cognition for earlier dementia detection, told Newsweek that earlier detection could ease both the human and financial burden the study describes.
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"If we can start identifying dementia and Alzheimer's disease at the very earliest stages of the disease process, people will be able to take advantage of new disease-modifying therapies that are becoming available," Cooney said. "This can boost quality of life with healthier years and can certainly mitigate medical and long-term care costs."
Cooney is also the founder PREMAZ, an app-based cognitive assessment, produced in collaboration with the University of Cambridge's Memory Lab. The platform is designed to detect cognitive changes decades before symptoms appear, giving people a window to intervene through lifestyle changes such as better sleep, exercise, nutrition and social connection. Research cited by Cooney suggests addressing such factors could prevent or delay up to 40 percent of dementia cases worldwide.
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The USC study, published June 24 in Alzheimer's & Dementia, found 5.7 million Americans are living with dementia in 2026, including 5.1 million who are 65 or older. The single largest cost, $320 billion, stems from reduced quality of life among people with dementia as cognition, function and independence decline. Care partners absorb an additional $15 billion in quality-of-life losses tied to emotional and physical strain.
Unpaid caregiving accounts for another major share of the total. About 5.2 million people, many of them still in their prime working years, provide 6.8 billion hours of unpaid care annually to a family member or friend with dementia, work the researchers value at $237 billion.
Medical and long-term care costs add up to $222 billion, with Medicare and Medicaid covering roughly 70 percent, or $154 billion, and patients and families paying about 20 percent, or $46 billion, out of pocket. People with dementia and their care partners also forgo a combined $23 billion in earnings each year from their inability to work.
"By providing annual, comprehensive and transparent estimates of dementia's total costs, our research can help guide decisions about how to allocate resources as the dementia population is set to grow substantially," Julie Zissimopoulos, principal investigator of the U.S. Cost of Dementia project and a professor at the USC Price School of Public Policy, said in a statement. "With our modeling approach, we can ask and answer questions such as: How will a new treatment that slows dementia improve quality of life or affect demand for nursing home care?"
The project is funded through a cooperative agreement with the National Institute on Aging.
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