What can we learn about dementia from research in Indigenous populations?

Abstract

Indigenous peoples represent up to 5% of the world's population (almost 400 million people), representing thousands of individual cultures and language groups. The health status of older Indigenous peoples has been little researched, partly related to lower life expectancy and the consideration that Indigenous peoples do not live long enough to experience the common “geriatric syndromes” such as dementia, frailty, and falls. Statistics from Australia and Canada now report that Indigenous populations are undergoing rapid aging, with many examples of survivorship to old age (Arkles et al., 2010; Jacklin et al., 2012). The systematic review by Warren et al. (2015) is a timely one, in that it re..