Mcdaid, David

Dementia of the Alzheimer type and related disorders greatly impact not only on the lives of sufferers but also on their unpaid informal carers, who usually are spouses or children. Carers are more likely to suffer from stress, take prescribed medication and visit their physicians compared with non-carers (Burns and Rabins, 2000). Social isolation that can occur in caregiving may mean that carers may only come to the attention of formal support services when a crisis occurs and informal care arrangements break down (Wenger, 1994).

In Alzheimer's disease and related disorders estimates of informal care costs have been neglected and when included in cost of illness studies, valuations have been highly variable. This illustrates the need to standardise the methodology not only for valuing formal, but also informal care costs. Methods used for valuing informal care are identified, together with theoretical and practical challenges in measurement.