Primary Care Providers May Be Key to Faster Alzheimer's Treatment

Effective disease-modifying therapies would be a breakthrough in slowing the progression of early-stage Alzheimer’s disease. However, widespread availability of these treatments—two of which have already received FDA approval—would also create big challenges for the U.S. health care system, including increased caseloads for dementia specialists and long wait times for patients.

RAND researchers used modeling to better understand how these challenges could play out between 2025 and 2044. They found that the health care system's capacity to detect, diagnose, and treat early-stage Alzheimer's disease varies significantly from state to state. Additionally, average patient wait times may be three times longer in rural areas compared with urban areas. (The researchers also created an interactive tool that shows how different assumptions about patient uptake and the capacity of the health care system would affect the simulated results.)

Enabling primary care providers to diagnose and evaluate patients for Alzheimer's therapy eligibility could help deliver care faster. In fact, our data suggests that shifting toward a primary care–led model would make the biggest impact on increasing the number of people treated for early-stage Alzheimer’s disease.