In 2025, dementia, including Alzheimer's disease, took 19,019 lives in Australia, becoming for the first time just over ten per cent of all deaths recorded by the Australian Bureau of Statistics. It is a quiet milestone in a long human story: a disease of memory and of the people who remember us now claims a larger share of the years at life's end, even as the country as a whole dies at lower rates than before. The same year brought a smaller but stubborn sorrow, as drug-induced deaths rose to 2,063, many of them among people in their late forties, reminding us that the nation is living longer
Dementia Now Causes More Than 1 in 10 Deaths in Australia, ABS Data Show
19,019 people died from dementia in 2025, and 2,063 died from drug-induced causes, with a median age at drug-death of 48.2 years.
Dementia has crossed 10 per cent of all deaths for the first time
Mark
Why does crossing 10 per cent matter, when dementia was already the leading cause of death?
Mimi
It marks scale. 19,019 deaths, and a share almost double the 5 per cent it held in 2006, when it ranked fourth.
Luke
Worth noting the source here is the ABS's own release, and it counts deaths where dementia is the underlying cause. The figures don't tell us why the share has grown.
Mark
Is the female number part of that?
Mimi
Yes. Women accounted for 61.1 per cent of dementia deaths, 11,628 of them, almost double ischaemic heart disease deaths among women at 5,965.
Luke
And it's been the top cause for women since 2016. That's a decade-long pattern, not a one-year spike.
Mark
Yet death rates fell overall?
Mimi
Yes. Male rates hit a record low of 581.3 per 100,000, and female rates were second lowest at 418.4.
Luke
Those are age-standardised rates. Raw death counts can still rise because the population is ageing, which is exactly what Moran said to expect.
Mark
And the drug deaths?
Mimi
2,063 in 2025, up from 2,007. Stimulant deaths went from 504 in 2021 to 779.
Luke
A modest one-year rise, but the stimulant growth is the real trend. The source doesn't say what is driving it, so we shouldn't either.
Il Polso
- Dementia has overtaken every other cause to claim just over ten per cent of Australian deaths, a first that lands hard on families watching memory fade.
- Women bear the heaviest weight, with 11,628 dementia deaths among them, nearly twice the toll of their second leading cause.
- Overall death rates have fallen to record lows for men and near-record lows for women, pulling the country back toward its pre-pandemic path.
- Drug-induced deaths climbed again to 2,063, with stimulants like methamphetamine surging and victims dying at a median age of just 48.2.
- Officials expect total deaths to keep rising as the population ages, so the challenge is shifting toward dementia care and drug harm reduction.
In 2025, dementia, including Alzheimer's disease, took 19,019 lives in Australia, becoming for the first time just over ten per cent of all deaths recorded by the Australian Bureau of Statistics. It is a quiet milestone in a long human story: a disease of memory and of the people who remember us now claims a larger share of the years at life's end, even as the country as a whole dies at lower rates than before. The same year brought a smaller but stubborn sorrow, as drug-induced deaths rose to 2,063, many of them among people in their late forties, reminding us that the nation is living longer while some of its members are still being lost too early.
In 2025, 19,019 people in Australia died of dementia, including Alzheimer's disease. That is just over ten per cent of all deaths, and according to the Australian Bureau of Statistics, it is the first time the disease has crossed that threshold. Two decades ago dementia ranked fourth and accounted for about 5 per cent.
The weight falls unevenly. Among women, dementia killed 11,628 people, nearly twice as many as heart disease, their second leading cause. Dementia has led causes of death for women since 2016, and 61.1 per cent of all dementia deaths last year were women.
Against that, the broader picture improved. Overall mortality fell, and age-standardised death rates for men reached a record low. ABS head of mortality statistics Lauren Moran explained that deaths can rise in number while rates fall, because the population is ageing, and that the pandemic's disruption appears to be receding.
Drugs remain a quieter but persistent toll. Drug-induced deaths rose to 2,063 from 2,007, with a median age at death of 48.2 years. Opioids and benzodiazepines are still the most common culprits, but stimulant-related deaths, including methamphetamine, have grown sharply, from 504 in 2021 to 779 in 2025.
In 2025, 19,019 people in Australia died of dementia, including Alzheimer's disease. That is just over 10 per cent of all deaths in the country, and according to figures released by the Australian Bureau of Statistics, it is the first time dementia has crossed that threshold.
Lauren Moran, the ABS head of mortality statistics, said deaths from dementia rose after the disease became the nation's leading cause of death in recent years. She put the new share in perspective: it is almost double what it was in 2006, when dementia ranked fourth among causes of death and accounted for 5 per cent of the total.
The other leading causes of death in 2025 were ischaemic heart diseases, cerebrovascular diseases, lung cancer and chronic respiratory diseases.
The burden falls unevenly between the sexes. Among women, dementia killed 11,628 people, almost twice as many as ischaemic heart diseases, the second leading cause of death for females, which claimed 5,965. Dementia has been the leading cause of death for women for a decade, since 2016. In 2025, 61.1 per cent of all dementia deaths were of women.
Against that, the broader picture was one of improvement. Mortality rates declined overall in 2025, and the ABS says the country's mortality patterns have returned to around their long-term, pre-pandemic trajectory. The age-standardised death rate for males fell to a record low of 581.3 deaths per 100,000 people. For females the rate was 418.4 per 100,000, the second lowest on record.
Moran explained that the numbers can move in opposite directions. With an ageing population, she said, the number of deaths is expected to rise over time even as death rates fall relative to population size. The COVID-19 pandemic temporarily disrupted that pattern, she said, but the latest rates suggest Australia is back on the long-term trend of declining death rates.
The data also show drug-induced deaths remaining a public health concern. They rose to 2,063 in 2025 from 2,007 in 2024. The mortality rate for these deaths was 7.4 per 100,000 people, and the median age at death was 48.2 years. When the rate last peaked, in 1999, the median age at death was 33.8 years.
Opioids and benzodiazepines remain the drug classes most commonly involved, Moran said, but deaths involving stimulants, including methamphetamine, have grown substantially. There were 779 drug-induced deaths involving stimulants in 2025, up from 504 in 2021.
Taken together, the figures describe a population living longer and dying at lower rates, with dementia claiming a larger share of those deaths, and a smaller but persistent toll from drugs, with stimulants the fastest-growing part of it.
Citazioni salienti
With an ageing population, we expect the number of deaths to increase over time, even as death rates decline relative to population size.— Lauren Moran, ABS head of mortality statistics
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