Dementia is the leading cause of premature death in older Australians, but fewer than one in three people are confident they know how to reduce their risk of it, a first-of-its-kind survey has shown.
The Dementia Awareness Survey released Wednesday by the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare (AIHW) is the largest nationally representative survey of its kind measuring knowledge of dementia risk factors and common misconceptions.
Dementia is an umbrella term for several diseases that over time destroy nerve cells and damage the brain, affecting memory, thinking and the ability to perform daily activities.
Some risk factors, such as ageing and genetics, cannot be changed, but current evidence indicates that about 40% of the risk can reduced by avoiding or changing certain behaviours such as not smoking, maintaining healthy blood pressure and socialising.
More than 5,400 adults completed the online survey available in six languages between July and August 2023, which asked them to respond to statements about the most common forms of dementia.
More than one in five respondents (22%) wrongly agreed that “dementia is a normal part of the ageing process”.
The most common misconceptions were that eating a protein-rich diet could lower the risk of dementia (31%), followed by avoiding the use of artificial sweeteners (26%) and aluminium cookware (20%).
Fewer than one in three participants confidently identified the 14 known risk factors of dementia.
Melanie Dunford, the head of the dementia data improvement unit at the AIHW, said despite the prevalence of dementia as a health and aged care concern in Australia, the community has poor understanding of what can be done to reduce the risk of dementia.
“When people have little knowledge it tends to correlate with greater stigma, which can lead to delays in people seeking help and whether they share diagnosis with others,” she said.
Conversely, the survey showed Australians who knew more about dementia tended to take more actions to reduce their dementia risk.
Almost all participants (99.6%) undertook one or more behaviours that can reduce the risk of developing dementia but fewer than two in five were doing so specifically for that reason.
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Dr Nikki-Anne Wilson, a research fellow at Neuroscience Research Australia and the University of New South Wales, said while the overlap between known risk factors for other chronic health conditions such as heart disease may be having secondary effects for dementia risk reduction, other health prevention information would not capture the full spectrum of risk reduction factors for dementia.
Her research has also shown Australians have a much poorer understanding of the risk reduction factors for dementia compared with other health conditions.
Wilson said individuals alone were unable to “efficiently reduce all the modifiable risk factors” and socioeconomic factors such as the cost of healthy food also played a role.
“There’s actually barriers to engaging in those risk reduction behaviours. So if the people who know what to do are already doing it, we need to shift our focus about addressing not only increasing information about what people can do … but also supporting those who may know what to do, but can’t do it for financial reasons, or for lack of time,” Wilson said.
The survey found significantly higher levels of knowledge about dementia amongst women, people with personal experience of people living with dementia, those with higher levels of education and household income, non-heterosexual people and people born in English-speaking countries.
The government commissioned the AIHW to conduct the survey, which will provide baseline data against which the effectiveness of the National Dementia Action Plan – which is still in development – can be measured.