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In 40 years, over one million Australians will experience dementia, more than doubling the current figure, as projected in a new report by the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare (AIHW).
The Dementia in Australia report estimates that by 2065, the number of Australians with dementia will surpass 1.1 million, growing from just under 425,000 in 2024.
AIHW stresses that these figures should be approached with caution, given the inherent uncertainty of long-term demographic predictions.
The report indicates nearly 266,000 women and 159,000 men lived with dementia in 2024, although “the exact number” remains uncertain due to the lack of a singular authoritative data source for determining dementia prevalence.
This significant increase in people with dementia is expected to coincide with the growth and aging of Australia’s population.
The AIHW in part uses the Australian Bureau of Statistics’ (ABS) population projections to establish its prevalence rates.
In 2024, Australia’s population was about 27 million, and the ABS projects it could reach between 33.96 million and 43.61 million in 2065.
“This trend is driven by the projected continued growth and ageing of Australia’s population, as dementia is increasingly common in older age,” the report says.
The report also found dementia was Australia’s leading cause of death in 2023, making up 9.5 per cent of all deaths — about 17,400 people. It is different to ABS estimates for that year, which put ischaemic heart diseases as the leading cause because AIHW counted a small number of deaths from forms of dementia that the ABS does not include in its reporting.
AIHW found the second leading cause of death that year was coronary heart disease.
“Between 2009 and 2023, the number of deaths due to dementia has more than doubled, from 8,500 deaths to 17,400 deaths,” the report says,
“The rate of deaths due to dementia also increased from 39 to 65 deaths per 100,000 population.”
‘Need to double everything’
Dementia is not one specific disease but is an umbrella term for a group of symptoms caused by disorders affecting the brain.
Dementia and impaired brain function can impact memory, speech, thought, personality, behaviour and mobility. It is a degenerative, terminal illness.
There are many forms of dementia, with the most common being the degenerative brain disease Alzheimer’s disease.
Lee-Fay Low, a professor in ageing and health at The University of Sydney, describes the new projection of one million people living with dementia as a “scary number”.
“Dementia affects a person and how well they can live life, but it really affects their whole family because then they need to give that person more support,” she told SBS News.
“To adequately diagnose and manage a million individuals, we would need to double our memory clinic capacities, expand nursing homes, essentially scale up everything,” Low stated.
What are the risk factors?
Associate professor Lyndsey Collins-Praino from the University of Adelaide, whose research specialises in neurodegenerative diseases, said: “The number one risk factor for dementia is older age.”
“In a relatively small number of cases, there’s a clear genetic call. This would be about five to 10 per cent of cases. And this would include where there’s a specific genetic change that leads to dementia,” she told SBS News.
“This doesn’t dismiss the potential role of genetic factors in some cases, but these genetic changes aren’t causative. Various environmental risk factors are implicated instead.”
These include limited education, hearing loss, high blood pressure, smoking, obesity, depression, physical inactivity, diabetes, excessive alcohol consumption, traumatic brain injury, air pollution, social isolation, high cholesterol, and untreated vision loss.
These risk factors relate to three distinct stages of life: early, mid, and later life.
“In early life, having a lower level of education is one of those risk factors,” Collins-Praino said.
“In middle life, these include things like hearing loss, having high LDL [Low-Density Lipoprotein or ‘bad’] cholesterol levels, physical inactivity, type 2 diabetes, high blood pressure and obesity, with many of these linked to cardiac risk factors.”
“In later life, factors like social isolation, lack of involvement in leisure and social activities, and unaddressed vision loss emerge as risk factors,” Collins-Praino noted.
Some academics have commended The Lancet study, but say it’s not possible to conclusively link these risk factors directly to dementia.
“It’s also important to note that when the report refers to the proportions of dementia cases that could be prevented, this is notional, and based on observational evidence,” said Charles Marshall, a professor of clinical neurology at Queen Mary University of London, after the report’s release.
“We don’t really have evidence that dementia cases are prevented by addressing any of these risk factors.”
The hidden workforce
According to the AIHW report, it’s estimated there were at least 102,000 unpaid primary carers of people living with dementia in the community in 2024.
Dementia Australia also estimates that around 1.7 million people are involved in their care, as of recent reports in 2025.
“It’s expensive for both health and aged care in terms of making the diagnosis and, hopefully, treatments on the horizon, but also because people living with dementia need more support for everyday life,” Low said.
The report states that nearly $3.7 billion of the total health and aged care expenditure in 2020-2021 was spent directly on dementia.
