Dementia as a Healthcare Issue in Australia

Nursing
Analysis
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Introduction
The essay will choose dementia as a healthcare issue in Australia. Dementia is precisely not
a disease, but a group of conditions occurred due to gradual damage of the brain’s
functions. It generally affects the capability of an individual to think, reason, and
memorize, along with their personality and weakening their brain’s functions like
movement and language. Dementia is an irreversible and deteriorating and condition, and
the cases could be found mostly in palliative, aged and older people care services.
Almost 447,115 people of Australia have dementia estimated in 2019 out of which 60% are
women, and 75% are aged above 70 years. It poses considerable challenges to the social,
health, and aged care policies of Australia. On the basis of growth and aging projections of
populations, by the year 2020, the total people with dementia will touch nearly 400,000.
Even though the estimation methods varies, the total people with dementia is estimated to
increase from 2011 to 2058, increasing 589,807 by the year 2028, reaching about 900,000
by the year 2050 and 1,076,129 by the year 2058.
In Australia, it is the second top reason of death in the year 2019 making 5.8% of every
death in men, and 11.3% in women, with more than 36 people are dying every day due to
dementia in the year 2019. Women had died twice than men from dementia. 13,126 people
lost their lives in 2019 out of which 8,447 were women. The deaths from dementia have
increased three times between 2011 and 2019. Some of the reasons for the increase in
mortality are due to the growth and aging of the population. More than 1.5 million people
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are engaged in the care of dementia in Australia in 2019. Dementia is evenly distributed
throughout Australia which is increasing almost 100,000 people from the year 2005.
Main Context
Types of Health Care Delivery
Health promotion and disease prevention in Australia is the chosen healthcare delivery. In
Australia, activities of disease prevention have a vital role in improving the health of the
people of Australia (Bailey, Stevens, LaRocca & Scogin, 2017). For instance, initial
measures of prevention in the 1800s comprised of water supply and sewerage systems in
the city of Sydney for improving the public sanitation. Some activities of prevention such
as fluoridated water target the entire population, whereas some activities such as breast
cancer screening target specific groups on the basis of age or other factors.
In Australia, health promotion such as education and social marketing are a vital part of
disease prevention and helps in building physical and social atmospheres for supporting
healthy behaviors (Beck, McIlfatrick, Hasson & Leavey, 2017). In the past and even at
present times, strategies of promotion and prevention like immunization, sanitation,
quarantine, practices of safe births, better supply of food and water and health and safety at
workplace, have helped to stop the spreading of contagious diseases, brought improvements
in child and maternal health and created healthier and safer atmospheres for living and
working (Cabrera et al., 2015).
Immunization is a significant health promotion to prevent the spreading of diseases which
might lead to illness and death. In Australia, immunization starts at childbirth, and
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vaccinations are for children, which covers 13 diseases such as measles, whooping cough,
and diphtheria (Daly, Bay, Levy & Carnahan, 2015).
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