Nearly half a million Aussies are currently living with dementia, and experts fear this figure will rise, unless swift action is taken.
In a new report, Dr Terence Chong, a psychiatrist, and Senior Research Fellow from the Academic Unit for Psychiatry of Old Age, at Melbourne Medical School, University of Melbourne, says that dementia needs to become Australia’s next public health focus. Current projections estimate that over one million Australians will be living with dementia by 2056.
What is dementia?
Dementia is an umbrella term that includes a group of conditions characterised by gradual impairment of brain function. People with dementia experience problems with memory, speech, cognition (thought), behaviour and mobility. Eventually, people with dementia also experience changes in their personality, and significant declines in different aspects of their health.
According to recent data from the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare, dementia was the second leading cause of death among Australians in 2018, causing almost 14,000 deaths. For 2020, AIHW reported that between 400,000 and 459,000 Australians were living with dementia.
“Dementia is the greatest cause of disability in Australians aged over 65 years, the second leading cause of mortality, and the highest in women,” Chong and colleagues wrote in their report.
Dealing with Dementia
Despite the worrisome statistics, there is a glimmer of hope, as a significant proportion of dementia risk has the potential to be modified. According to Dr Chong and colleagues, research findings have estimated that between 40% and 48% of dementia risk is modifiable. This means that action can be taken to help patients reduce their risk of developing dementia.
“In Australia, the population-attributable risk of dementia risk factors, in descending order, are physical inactivity (17.9%), mid-life obesity (17.0%), low educational attainment in early life (14.7%), mid-life hypertension (13.7%), depression (8.0%), smoking (4.3%), and diabetes mellitus (2.4%).
In addition, Dr Chong notes that having hearing loss, traumatic brain injury, alcohol use, social isolation, exposure to air pollution, a sub-optimal diet, cognitive inactivity, and alterations to a normal sleeping pattern can also increase dementia risk.
In his report, Dr Chong and collaborators from the National Health and Medical Research Council National Institute for Dementia Research (NNIDR) Dementia Prevention Special Interest Group propose the following Dementia Prevention Action Plan for Australia:
- Create public health and clinical practice guidelines for dementia prevention across the lifespan for the Australian setting;
- Equip and resource primary care providers to be the clinical spearheads for dementia prevention throughout life;
- Support multidisciplinary memory clinics and specialists to implement secondary prevention programs for those at high risk;
- Fund research for evidence-based interventions for modifiable risk factors for dementia across the life cycle to reduce the evidence-to-practice gap;
- Implement findings from dementia risk reduction and implementation research through translation into health promotion programs;
- Strengthen dementia prevention public health campaigns embracing Australians’ diversity, particularly Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Australians;
- Resource and coordinate a whole-of-community approach including government, public and private health care, community services and education sectors to operationalise guidelines and multifaceted dementia prevention programs throughout life; and,
- Mobilise peak health advocacy bodies to promote and coordinate public health messaging on dementia risk factors that cut across chronic conditions.
According to Dr Chong, Australia has an excellent health infrastructure and an international reputation for dementia prevention, thanks to extensive experience in clinical, research, and knowledge translation expertise.
“If we are committed to achieving the ambitious targets of reduced dementia prevalence and incidence, we must shine a spotlight on dementia prevention across all levels of society. It is time for a call to action in the fight against dementia: dementia prevention needs to be the next international public health area of focus, with Australia playing a leading role,” he said in their call to action.