High prevalence of dementia and cognitive impairment in Indigenous Australians

Abstract

Objectives: To determine the prevalence of dementia and cognitive impairment among older Indigenous Australians.

Methods: A total of 363 Indigenous Australians aged over 45 years from the Kimberley region in the far north of Western Australia were assessed with the Kimberley Indigenous Cognitive Assessment (KICA). All those scoring less than 37 on the KICA and a percentage of those scoring 37 or more were reviewed by specialist clinicians and DSM-IV consensus diagnoses were obtained from two other specialists blinded to KICA results.

Results: The prevalence of dementia was 12.4%, substantially higher than in the Australian general population. The prevalence of cognitive impairment not dementia was 8.0%.

Conclusions: The prevalence of dementia among Indigenous Australians is substantially higher than that found in non-Indigenous Australians and all other studied populations.