FDA-approved medications for dementia are unlike non-pharmacological interventions as they are counterproductive

Abstract

Recently, a number of non-pharmacological interventions for dementia symptoms were evaluated using cost–benefit analysis (CBA) and found to be both effective and socially worthwhile. What is missing is a comparison of evaluations for these interventions with pharmaceutical interventions approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to see which interventions should be given priority in public expenditure budgets aiming to reduce dementia symptoms. This paper fills this knowledge gap by carrying out a CBA of FDA-approved medications using a large national data set provided by the National Alzheimer’s Coordinating Center (NACC). We find that the pharmaceutical medications were actually counterproductive, and therefore social welfare would be substantially improved by not investing in these medications. This therefore means that non-pharmaceutical interventions should be given higher priority at this time.