description
Whereas there are many publications on disorders of, for instance, heart or kidney function, there are few, if any, on brain disorders, which are traditionally viewed separately as mental, neurological or neurosurgical disorders. There are, however, marked similarities and shared interests between the fields and, most importantly, basic neuroscience is equally relevant for all clinical problems. The European Brain Council has analysed the burden and the cost of brain disorders in Europe. The aim of the present text is to report data for Slovenia. Twelve different disorders (or groups of disorders) of brain believed to have the highest cost (addiction, affective disorders, anxiety disorders, brain tumours, dementia, epilepsy, migraine and other headaches, multiple sclerosis, Parkinsonćs disease, psychotic disorders,stroke, and trauma) were analysed. Epidemiology data for Europe werecollected as 12-month prevalence data for disorders by country and stratified according to age, gender, and disorder severity. Because little original data were available for Slovenia, extrapolated data were used. Healtheconomic data (representing direct medical costs, direct non-medical costs, and indirect costs) being transformed into euros for the year 2004 wereentered into a health economic model. The total number of brain disorders in Slovenia amounted to 570,000 in 2004, and when corrected for co-morbidity, 1ž5 of the Slovenian population have a brain disorder. In particular, this is 39,000 alcohol dependents and illicit drug dependants, 105.000 affective disorders, 195,000 anxiety disorders, 178,000 migraine, etc. The total cost ofall included brain disorders in Slovenia was estimated at 833 million euros,the most costly being affective disorders, dementia, and addiction. (Abstract truncated at 2000 characters)