Caregiver Engagement Is the Missing Link in Dementia Care: Why Empowering Families Drives Better Outcomes and Lower Costs

Dementia is becoming one of healthcare’s most difficult problems to ignore. As the population ages, more families are finding themselves responsible for loved ones who can no longer manage their own care, communicate symptoms clearly, or navigate the healthcare system. Research shows that people living with dementia are hospitalized far more often than those without it—even when age and other medical conditions are taken into account—fueling a cycle of stress, confusion, and hospital visits that are often avoidable with the right support in place.

That raises a simple but uncomfortable question: if people living with dementia can’t meaningfully engage with the healthcare system on their own, why do we keep designing care models that expect them to?

That question sits at the heart of this episode of Highway to Health, hosted by David Kemp, featuring Dirk Soenksen, CEO of Ceresti Health. Together, they explore why family caregivers—not patients—are the most important and overlooked participants in dementia care. The conversation looks at what actually happens inside the home, how caregivers make daily decisions that affect outcomes, and why supporting them can improve quality of life while reducing strain on the healthcare system.

Top insights from the talk…

• Why traditional patient engagement doesn’t work for dementia: Cognitive impairment makes it unrealistic to rely on patients to self-report symptoms or manage care, often leaving them disconnected from timely medical support.

• How caregivers become the real care coordinators: When caregivers are educated and supported, they’re better equipped to recognize changes, respond early, and work effectively with primary care physicians.

• What a caregiver-first model changes for the system: Ceresti Health’s approach has shown meaningful reductions in avoidable hospitalizations, saving roughly $6,000 per patient per year while helping people remain at home longer.

Dirk Soenksen is a healthcare executive and entrepreneur with a long track record of founding, scaling, and commercializing technology-enabled care and diagnostics companies. He is the co-founder and CEO of Ceresti Health, where he leads a caregiver-enabled dementia care model that delivers proven cost savings for Medicare Advantage plans, ACOs, and PACE programs, and participates in CMS’s GUIDE model. Previously, he founded and scaled Aperio into a global leader in digital pathology—raising over $50M and leading the company through FDA clearances and a successful acquisition by Danaher—after earlier leadership roles in digital health, medical technology, and engineering.

Article written by MarketScale.