Photo: Andre Oullet / Unsplash
An initiative to capture how many New Zealanders actually have dementia, is going door knocking. The best estimate is that it affects 70,000 New Zealanders and that's likely to triple by 2050.
The Impact of Dementia and Equity in Aotearoa study, led by Auckland University's healthy ageing expert, Professor Ngaire Kerse is focusing on what's called `ignored ethnic diversity'. This includes Chinese, Indian and Fijian Indian communities, which are known to be under represented in dementia statistics.
Next month, more than 50 researchers will begin door knocking in Auckland and Christchurch. Kathryn also speaks to AUT Professor Rita Krishnamurthi specialising in dementia epidemiology, and Associate Professor, Gary Cheung is an old age psychiatrist based at the University of Auckland.
