Daily London
Dementia, including Alzheimer’s disease, accounted for over 17,500 deaths last year.
Ischemic heart diseases are now at their lowest rate in the available time series.
”The number of deaths caused by dementia has risen by 39 per cent over the last decade,” ABS Head of Morality Statistics, Lauren Moran, said.
The leading cause of death in 2024 aligns with Australia’s ageing population.
Over two-thirds of the deaths were among people aged over 75 years old, compared to 66.1 per cent 10 years ago and 63.3 per cent twenty years ago.
“People are now more likely to live to an age where they have a higher risk of developing dementia,” Moran said.
“This is especially true for women who have longer life expectancies. Today’s data shows that 62.4 per cent of people who died from dementia were women.
“We’ve also seen that dementia has been the leading cause of death for women since 2016,” Moran said.
The gap between dementia and ischemic heart disease deaths has been narrowing for a while, with dementia accounting for 9.1 per cent of total deaths, while heart disease accounted for 9.3 per cent in 2023.
In 2024, dementia accounted for 9.4 per cent of total deaths, and ischaemic heart diseases accounted for 8.7 per cent.
