A recent study on Acquired Brain Damage (ABD) led by the Head of the Healthcare Management Department at Alto Deba Hospital, Javier Mar, provides relevant data for health and social service planning. The main innovation of the study involves the calculation of the prevalence in the population of disabilities resulting from Acquired Brain Damage (ABD). In other words, it quantifies individuals with chronic sequelae and derived costs.

The goal of this study is to highlight the care needs associated to this new epidemiological profile in industrialised countries, where chronic diseases pose the highest expense. In fact, the annual cost of an affected patient totals an average of 21,040 euros in the Basque Country and Navarre, and about half of these costs are supported by the family.

Javier Mar, who is also the Coordinator of the West Gipuzkoa Interhospital Research Unit, deals with models for discrete event simulation applied to calculate the disease prevalence rate, a rarely addressed healthcare field, and his publications have had a great impact in the sector's international publications.

After noticing the crucial change in the epidemiological profile registered in our society, Javier Mar began his research five years ago, thanks to a scholarship funded by the Basque Foundation for Health Innovation and Research (BIOEF).

Dr. Mar clarifies that ABD has a direct repercussion on patients, caregivers, society and institutions. This implies health and life quality costs both for affected patients and caregivers together with economic costs for all parties.