AIMS: Several studies have shown that health care costs are higher for demented than for @entity3257 @entity1 and that health care costs are higher for more severe demented @entity1 than less severe demented @entity1 . However, most studies report on cross-sectional study designs, and thus fail to examine the influence of disease progression on changes in health care costs to individual @entity1 . The objective of this study was, using longitudinal data, to examine changes in total health care costs with disease progression in demented @entity1 . METHODS: We assumed that disease progression could be characterised by transitions between different states of @entity303 which reflected the degree to which the disease progressed over time. Then, changes in health care costs were regressed on a set of explanatory variables including disease progression. A total of 465 demented and @entity3257 @entity1 were interviewed twice. The time between interviews was about three years. Before each interview, the @entity1 was examined for @entity303 and classified by type of @entity303 ( @entity195 , vascular or other types of @entity303 ) and degree of @entity303 (very mild, mild, moderate, severe). RESULTS: The results of this longitudinal study confirmed that health care costs increased over time for @entity3257 as well as for demented @entity1 and that health care costs increased with disease progression. In particular, the health care costs increased when the disease had progressed into the severe state of the @entity303 . Also, decline in functional abilities was an important factor for explaining changes in health care costs.

Cost of XXXX : impact of disease progression estimated in longitudinal data.

@entity1 :: ('9606', 'Species') :: ['participant', 'persons'] @entity3257 :: ('MESH:C580335', 'Disease') :: ['non-demented'] @entity303 :: ('MESH:D003704', 'Disease') :: ['dementia'] @entity195 :: ('MESH:D000544', 'Disease') :: ["Alzheimer's disease"]
@entity303 :: (MESH:D003704,Disease) :: ['dementia']
