Alzheimer’s disease and dementia, irreversible and progressive brain disorders that slowly but surely destroy human memory and basic living skills, are among the most serious public health challenges we face today. Fifty-five million people are currently estimated to have dementia worldwide. Of those, 60-70% are Alzheimer’s Disease cases, according to the WHO 2023 report.

While no cure has yet been found, recent progress in research provides growing hope. If a breakthrough, either a cure or prevention, drastically improves the current situation, what impact would it have on all the parties affected by this disease, including insurers?

SCOR’s Knowledge team has developed an in-depth footprint scenario analysis, using sophisticated modeling and implementation of a shock on Alzheimer’s and dementia mortality, assessing its impact on life expectancy in multiple scenarios, ranging from reductions to the elimination of Alzheimer’s and dementia mortality.

This research summary article is the second part of the Alzheimer’s disease and dementia footprint analysis series (the first article was published in June 2022). It portrays the impact of possible future medical advancement on a selected population group’s life expectancy and the implementation of a shock on Alzheimer’s and dementia mortality. The study describes the modeling framework, including the competing risks model based on the Archimedean survivor copula from Li and Lu (2019) and the mortality impact of the two selected footprint, or “what-if” scenarios - delaying the onset of the diseases (Scenario 1) and elimination of the diseases (Scenario 2). Our analysis based on the data shows a positive future mortality impact of both scenarios.