Project background

Ageing is one of the greatest social and economic challenges of the 21^st century for European societies. In all EU countries, life expectancy is increasing and it is estimated that by 2025 more than 20% of Europeans will be 65 or over. As Europe’s population is ageing, long-term care for elderly citizens will become an increasing cost for society. With ageing populations, strong increases in the prevalence of dementia may be expected. According to the World Health Organization, 44 million people around the world have some form of dementia, for which there is no effective intervention to halt or reverse the progressive cognitive impairment. To manage this transition, healthcare policies in the EU and individual Member States are heavily focused on extending the independent life of the elderly, with the dual aim of increasing their quality of life and reducing the costs of care.

The costs of care are attributed to informal care (unpaid care provided by family members or others), direct costs of social care (provided by community care professionals and in residential home settings) and the direct costs of medical care (the costs of treating dementia and other conditions in primary and secondary care). In high income countries, the direct costs of social care (paid home care and care in care homes) and the indirect costs of informal care provided by unpaid family caregivers contribute similar proportions to total costs, while in low and middle income countries, the cost of informal care predominates given the lack of structured formal care sector services. The informal caregiver adopts medical, assistive and social roles and for this reason, caregivers’ interventions are effective in keeping people living with dementia at home longer and in delaying the nurse home admission.

In this context, the CAREGIVERSPRO-MMD solution will constitute a novel approach that will incorporate the live-in family caregiver and person with dementia “dyad” as the unit of care, facilitating the informal care of people living with dementia and reducing thereby costs for overall health care system by delaying institutionalisations.