Cost-benefit analysis of assistive technology to support independence for people with dementia – Part 1: Development of a methodological approach to the ENABLE cost-benefit analysis

Abstract

One of the main tasks of the ENABLE project was to develop a methodology to support the assessment of the socio-economic costs and benefits at both a micro (individual) and macro (societal) level of the technologies developed and tested within the project. In simple terms, the goal of the ENABLE cost-benefit approach was to identify whether the benefits resulting from using the ENABLE technologies exceed their costs in terms of positive net social gains, thus indicating that they are a worthwhile investment from an individual and societal perspective. The cost-benefit analysis should, therefore, assess the technologies in relation to socio-economic costs and any socio-economic benefits yielded. This paper presents an overview of the development of the cost-benefit methodology used in the assessment trials in ENABLE.