Recent advances in the detection and treatment of Alzheimer’s disease: What’s the impact for insurers?

Dementia is one of the leading causes of dependency and disability worldwide. It is estimated that more than 50 million people suffer from this condition, with Alzheimer’s disease being the primary dementia subtype.

In recent years, there have been significant advancements in the diagnosis of Alzheimer’s disease, which is now being detected earlier than ever before. This is good news for the treatment of Alzheimer's patients, bringing hope in terms of new therapeutic approaches and maybe even deferring or slowing down the progression of symptoms.

New biomarker-based definitions will most likely lead to a significant increase in the number of Alzheimer’s disease diagnoses over the coming decades, irrespective of cognitive impairment or the aging population.

There are also positive signals from new therapeutic approaches with GLP-1 receptor agonists, which are currently in phase 3 trials and seem to have neuroprotective effects in the development of the disease. This could help to curb the trend of increasing cases.

This article looks at the recent advances in the detection and treatment of Alzheimer’s disease and asks: What’s the impact for insurers?