Study: Annual U.S. dementia care costs top $100 billion

[Emily]

http://money.cnn.com/2013/04/04/news/economy/dementia-care-costs/

Dementia care costs top $100 billion
By Chris Isidore CNNMoney April 4, 2013: 3:25 PM ET

If the care by family members is valued at what it would cost to hire a professional health care provider, the cost estimate of caring for patients rises to $159 billion. If the lost wages of family members is used to value the cost of informal care, the total cost estimate rises to $215 billion. Egge said about 70% of Alzheimer patients live at home and depend on this kind of informal care..

http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMsa1204629#t=abstract
Monetary Costs of Dementia in the United States
Michael D. Hurd, Ph.D., Paco Martorell, Ph.D., Adeline Delavande, Ph.D., Kathleen J. Mullen, Ph.D., and Kenneth M. Langa, M.D., Ph.D.
N Engl J Med 2013; 368:1326-1334April 4, 2013DOI: 10.1056/NEJMsa1204629

I'm not sure of the lost wages are an actual loss to the overall economy in an era of high unemployment and low wages. Someone else will fill those jobs. If a worker is irreplaceable, they are usually highly paid enough to hire a caretaker for their relative and in those cases employment is created, not lost.