Types of dementia
In the linked data, dementia type may be recorded in a hospital admission, an ACFI assessment of care needs at entry to permanent residential aged care, a death record, or inferred through the dispensing of dementia-specific medications (currently only subsidised under the PBS and RPBS for people diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease). Dementia types were mapped to the 4 broad categories used in the ACFI assessment, as summarised in Table 5.
| ACFI category | Description |
|---|---|
| Dementia in Alzheimer’s disease | Dementia in Alzheimer’s disease (includes early onset <65 years, late onset 65+ years, atypical or mixed type, unspecified) |
| Vascular dementia | Vascular dementia (includes acute onset, multi-infarct, subcortical, mixed cortical & subcortical, other vascular, unspecified) |
| Dementia in other diseases | The ACFI category includes dementia in Pick’s disease (frontotemporal dementia), Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, Huntington’s disease, Parkinson’s disease, HIV and other diseases, and dementia with Lewy bodies. Records of ‘Delirium superimposed on dementia’ and ‘Dementia due to psychoactive substance use’ from other datasets were also included in this category. |
| Other dementia not elsewhere classified (NEC) or not otherwise specified | The ACFI category includes alcoholic, presenile & senile, unspecified dementia. Records of ‘Unspecified dementia’ from other datasets were included in this category. |