The availability of medicines in general

In the Czech Republic, medicinal products are classified into three categories and reimbursement may vary from 0 to 100%. The first category is fully covered and includes the cheapest effective preparations of all essential products. For medicines in the second or third category, patients need to either partly or fully co-finance the costs of the medicines. [1]

The availability of Alzheimer treatments

All four anti-dementia drugs are available in the Czech Republic and are part of the reimbursement system.

The Czech Republic limits reimbursement of these drugs to prescriptions filled in by specialists (neurologists, psychiatrists and geriatricians) both for initiation and continuation decisions of these treatments. Furthermore, acetylcholinesterase inhibitors are limited to patients with an MMSE score between 20 and 13 and memantine to patients with an MMSE score between 16 and 6.

There are no reimbursement restrictions for people living alone or in nursing homes.

[1] European Commission (2006): MISSOC – Mutual information system on social protection : Social protection in the Member States of the European Union, of the European Economic Area and in Switzerland : Comparative tables