Dementia deaths soaring in Australia
With Australians now living longer, deaths from dementia and Alzheimer’s disease have more than doubled in the past decade with the disease overtaking colon cancer, respiratory disease, leukemia and lymph cancer to become the fourth leading cause of death.
The Australian Bureau of Statistics found that in 2007 dementia and Alzheimer’s directly claimed the lives of 5,048 Australians compared with 1,777 10 years earlier, when it was the seventh leading cause of death.
The Victorian director of Alzheimer’s Australia, Lynette Moore, said dementia was a growing problem which needed attention because people suffered severe symptoms for up to 20 years before they died.
“It is simply because we are very successful at keeping people older longer”, she said.
“With dementia moving from the seventh to fourth as the biggest cause of death it really does sharpen our focus on the need to invest in research and prevention and also to get better at our future aged care planning so we can deal with the sheer volume of people coming through”.
The ABS still placed heart disease, stroke, and lung cancer as the big three causes of Australian deaths.
Heart disease has fallen from 22% of all deaths in 1998 to 16% in 2007, but cancer deaths increased by 13% in the same period.
