OBJECTIVES: As cognitive and functional ability declines, cognitive impairment (CI) patients require more caregiving in order to maintain daily activities. In addition to seeking homecare services, unpaid caregivers such as family and friends are critical in caring for AD patients. This analysis aimed to assess the non-professional caregiving hours required by patients at different stages of CI.   METHODS: Data were taken from the Dementia Disease Specific Programme, a cross-sectional survey of physicians, patients and caregivers in 5 major EU countries and the US. Physicians completed a record form for patients who were consecutively consulted with cognitive impairment. This included patient demographics, clinical characteristics and non-professional caregiver hours required. Propensity score matching was used to compare the societal burden of prodromal patients with that of mild patients alone and mild, moderate and severe patients combined. Patients were matched on their demographics and clinical characteristics. Statistical significance was assessed via calculation of the Abadie-Imbens standard error. RESULTS:  A total of 7,020 patients were collected (median age 78.0, 45.8% male). Over two-thirds of patients (69.1%) required a non-professional caregiver. After matching on demographic and clinical characteristics, 2346 pairs of AD patients and prodromal patients were identified. AD patients required significantly more non-professional caregiver hours per week compared to prodromal patients (55.28 vs. 32.86; p<0.001), equating to almost an additional 24 hours of care per week. Mild AD patients alone also required more non-professional caregiver hours per week compared to prodromal patients (52.09 vs. 25.14; p<0.001), equating to over 24 hours of additional care per week. In both models, all covariates were adequately balanced between groups. CONCLUSIONS: Patients required significantly more non-professional caregiving time if they were diagnosed with AD. Informal caregiving constitutes an important part of the societal burden of AD. As a result, there are considerable benefits by delaying the disease progressing to AD.