Australia Leading the World in Addressing Dementia

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22 April 2013

Australia has been recognised on the world stage as the global leader in addressing dementia.

The 2013 Alzheimer’s Disease International Award recognised Minister for Ageing Mark Butler for Australia’s “efforts in improving the lives of people with dementia and their carers.”

Those efforts include the Fight Dementia campaign, making dementia a ‘national priority area’ through COAG and the Federal Government’s $3.7 billion Living Longer Living Better aged care reforms, which provide a big boost to dementia funding and the broader aged care system.

Accepting the award from Ita Buttrose today, Mr Butler said it recognises Australia as leading the world and it was thanks to the whole community’s efforts to draw attention to the issue and demand better resourcing and support.

“Dementia has really achieved national prominence this decade - we’ve made it a national priority area with new funding and support, we’ve had Ita Buttrose recognised as Australian of the Year for her great work in this area and this award recognises the work of the whole Australian community to bring dementia out of the shadows.”

“Australia is a nation with a proud history of leading the world in medical and health breakthroughs, but also in the way we support people through Medicare and the broader health system.”

“The Government’s aged care reforms build on that tradition with $268 million to improve hospital and community care services for people with dementia, reduce the time between symptoms and diagnosis and provide more help to people with younger onset dementia.”

“Dementia is likely to affect 900,000 Australians by 2050 and I’m proud that Australia is acting now in whole range of areas like research, awareness and better services.”

Mr Butler thanked Alzheimer’s Australia National President Ita Buttrose who made the nomination to Alzheimer’s Disease International, saying the organisation’s work was only matched by Ita’s personal commitment to the issue.

“It’s with the tireless work of great Australians like Ita Buttrose, working with government and the broader community that we have come this far, but there is so much more we need to do.”

Previous winners of the award include former French President, Nicolas Sarkozy (2012).

Key Stats

• There are over 321,600 Australians living with dementia
• This number is expected to increase by one third to 400,000 in less than ten years
• Without a medical breakthrough, the number of people with dementia is expected to be almost 900,000 by 2050
• Each week, there are 1,700 new cases of dementia in Australia; approx. one person every 6 minutes. This is expected to grow to 7,400 new cases each week by 2050
• There are approximately 24,400 people in Australia with Younger Onset Dementia (a diagnosis of dementia under the age of 65; including people as young as 30)
• One in four people over the age of 85 have dementia
• An estimated 1.2 million Australians are caring for someone with dementia
• Dementia is the third leading cause of death in Australia and there is no cure
• On average symptoms of dementia are noticed by families three years before a firm diagnosis is made