Persons with dementia and their caregivers (often family members) experience a significant financial impact from the cost of social and health care and loss of income (World Health Organization (WHO), 2017). The cost of dementia in East Sub-Saharan Africa (which includes Kenya) increased by 267.4% from 2010 (US$ 0.4 billion) to 2015 (US$ 1.5 billion) with informal care costs estimated at 68.9%, direct medical cost at 20.8% and social care costs at 10.3% in 2015 (Prince et al., 2015). However, there is no study conducted in Kenya that has specifically evaluated the cost of dementia.

References:

Prince, M., Wimo, A., Guerchet, M., Ali, G., Wu, Y., & Prina, M. (2015). World Alzheimer Report 2015: The Global Impact of Dementia: An analysis of prevalence, incidence, cost and trends. Alzheimer’s Disease International. London. https://www.alzint.org/u/worldalzheimerreport2015summary.pdf

World Health Organization (WHO). (2017). Global action plan on the public health response to dementia 2017 – 2025. Geneva, Switzerland. https://apps.who.int/iris/bitstream/handle/10665/259615/9789241513487-eng.pdf?sequence=1