Understanding dementia amongst indigenous Australians

Abstract

Dementia is a growing health and social concern for all Australians. It has been previously thought that Indigenous Australians did not live long enough to get dementia (Pollitt 1997). Interestingly, Indigenous Australians have reported dementia as being a 'whitefella sickness' (Woenne-Green 1995) as 'the word dementia has no meaning’ in Indigenous terms (Fox 1994; Zann 1994). More 'recently dementia has been described as a 'sick spirit' (Arabena 2007). However, as the life expectancy of Indigenous people increases, and they grow older they will encounter causes of death and disability not unlike their non-Indigenous counterparts, including increased presentations of dementia (Arabena 2007).