Introduction: Alzheimer´s disease (AD) is the most common cause of dementia. Mild cognitive decline (MCD) usually preces AD. AD causes significant impairment in patients and caretakers and produces significant burden of disease. The objective of this study was to estimate the economic burden of AD and MLD in Colombia.

Methods: We estimated the total quantity of prevalent cases and expected deaths related to AD and MCD. We used information from local databases and available literature. We estimated a base (considering all potential patients) and a sub diagnosis scenario (considering that only a fraction of patients is identified). For direct medical costs, we estimated healthcare resource utilization using local clinical experts. Costs were calculated using local tariff manuals. We estimated productivity losses for patients due to morbidity and premature mortality and for caretakers. We obtained local data related to employment and income from official sources. We also estimated out-of-pocket expenses considering local costs, literature and expert opinion.

Results: We estimated a total of 374,996 cases and 8,472 deaths for AD, and 311,054 cases and 4,680 deaths for MCD in the base scenario. We calculated a total of COP6,121,060 million, COP5,960,467 million for productivity loss, and COP2,744,212 million for out-of-pocket expenses. We estimated a total of 154,382 cases and 3,693 deaths for AD, and 102,648 cases and 1,544 deaths for MCD in the base scenario. We calculated a total of COP2,363,037 million, COP1,417,318 million for productivity loss, and COP1,658,709 million for out-of-pocket expenses.

Conclusions: We estimated that AD and MCD produce significant direct and indirect costs in Colombia. There is a major difference between the base and the sub diagnosis cases, that can be interpreted as a difference between potential and attributed costs. It is important to consider that non-diagnosed case can still produce significant costs that get attributed to other conditions.