Intervention assumptions

Drug Intervention
Mean Decline Model (MMSE/N)	Assumption
Source
Annual MMSE decline without treatment	Normal distribution with a mean of 3.5 and a standard deviation of 1.5, with negative truncation	Consistent with findings by Sabbagh et al [30], Matthews et al [31], and Small et al [32] of mean decline differences across studies of between 1.7 and 2.3 MMSE points per year for untreated compared with treated
Annual MMSE decline with treatment	Normal distribution with a mean of 1.5 and a standard deviation of 1.5, with negative truncation
Decline Model of Lopez et al [6] (MMSE/L)
Probability of being slow progressor without treatment	0.39	Lopez et al [6]
Annual decline of slow progressors without treatment	Uniform distribution over range of −1 to 2: mean, 0.5
Annual decline of fast progressors without treatment	Uniform distribution over range of 3 to 6.8: mean, 4.9
Probability of being slow progressor with treatment	0.60
Annual decline of slow progressors without treatment	Uniform distribution over range of −1 to 2: mean, 0.5
Annual decline of fast progressors without treatment	Uniform distribution over range of 3 to 5: mean, 4.0

Caregiver Intervention	Assumption	Source
Initial counselor time in hours	24	Mittelman et al [7]
Annual counselor time in hours	9.4
Counselor wage and benefits	$35.05	SOC Code 211022, May 2005, assuming 30% benefits rate
Odds ratio reduction in nursing home risk	Uniform draw from confidence interval of 0.54 to 0.96	Mittelman et al [7]
Base annual risk of caregiver depression	0.32	Mittelman et al [34]
Annual reduction in caregiver depression risk from counseling	0.057
Caregiver utility with depression	0.59	Lave et al [26]
Annual incremental home service use by counseled caregivers	Uniform draw from range of $0 to $2968	Upper bound estimated from Newcomer et al (1999); assumes Wisconsin pays entire amount [35]