Dementia deaths during the COVID-19 pandemic in Australia

A total of 858 people died due to COVID-19 over the first 10 months of 2020 (443 women and 415 men). Of these, 30% also had dementia recorded on their death certificate (140 women and 117 men). There are substantial variations in how mortality data are collected across countries, but government sources compiled in August 2020 suggest that people with dementia made up 26% of all COVID-19 deaths in the United Kingdom (based on death certificate data) and 19% in Italy (based on clinical data for people who died in hospitals) (Suarez-Gonzalez et al. 2020).  

Figure 8 shows the age and sex distribution of people who died due to COVID-19 by whether dementia was also recorded on their death certificate:

• more than half (54%) of people with dementia who died due to COVID-19 were women; by comparison, among people without dementia, deaths due to COVID-19 were evenly split by sex. This likely reflects dementia being more common in women than in men.

• with the exception of men without dementia, most deaths due to COVID-19 occurred among those aged 85 and over. This pattern was more apparent for those who died with dementia – 62% of men and 77% of women with dementia who died due to COVID-19 were aged 85 or over, compared with 46% of men and 62% of women without dementia who died due to COVID-19

• people with dementia who died due to COVID-19 tended to be older – the median age of people with dementia who died due to COVID-19 was 87.3 for men and 89.2 for women compared to 83.9 for men and 87.7 for women who died due to COVID-19 but without dementia.