What were the most common principal diagnoses for Indigenous Australians when dementia was an additional diagnosis?
The statistics presented in the previous section relate to hospitalisations due to dementia, which are those where dementia was the principal diagnosis or main reason for hospitalisation. However, hospitalisation data also include information relating to ‘additional diagnoses’, which are those conditions that impact the provision of care but are not the principal diagnosis.
In 2018–19 there were 1,365 hospitalisations with dementia among Indigenous Australians.
When dementia was an additional diagnosis, the most common principal diagnoses among hospitalisations among Indigenous Australians aged 40 and over were:
- Problems related to medical facilities and other health care—15 hospitalisations per 10,000 Indigenous Australians
- the majority of these hospitalisations (83%) related to people awaiting admission to residential aged care services
- Fracture of the femur—11 hospitalisations per 10,000 Indigenous Australians
- Pneumonia, organism unspecified—10 hospitalisations per 10,000 Indigenous Australians.
Other common principal diagnoses recorded for these hospitalisations included urinary system disorders, sepsis and a number of chronic conditions such as chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, cardiovascular diseases, and diabetes (Figure 12.6).
Indigenous men were more likely than Indigenous women to have a principal diagnosis of Acute myocardial infarction (20 hospitalisations per 10,000 for men compared with 6.4 per 10,000 for women), Other chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (11 per 10,000 for men compared with 6.5 per 10,000 for women) and Type 2 diabetes mellitus (6.9 per 10,000 for men compared with 2.6 per 10,000 for women). In contrast, Indigenous women were more likely than men to have a principal diagnosis of Fracture of the femur (25 per 10,000 for women compared with 7.2 per 10,000 for men), Other sepsis (18 hospitalisations per 10,000 for women compared with 4.9 per 10,000 for men) and Pneumonitis due to solids and liquids (14 per 10,000 for women compared with 4.1 per 10,000 for men).