Risk factors for developing dementia

Education

A higher-quality childhood education, as measured by things like reading levels at age 14–15, are associated with a lower chance of developing dementia. This may be because high-quality education tends to lead to more mentally stimulating work as an adult, and stimulating your brain also helps reduce your dementia risk.

Learning throughout your life keeps your mind active and helps reduce your dementia risk, but it’s also something you can pass on. By giving the children in your life the best education you can, you're helping to reduce their future risk of developing dementia.

What you can do: Keep learning, and support the education of children in your care.

Find out more about what you can do to reduce your dementia risk, or explore more risk factors.

Hearing loss

Hearing loss is associated with a higher risk of developing dementia. The more severe your hearing loss becomes and the longer you experience the loss, the higher your risk.

It’s possible that hearing loss increases dementia risk because it reduces how much your brain is stimulated by sound, and keeping your brain busy is good for reducing your dementia risk. It’s also possible that having hearing loss increases your chances of being socially isolated and depressed, which are also risk factors for developing dementia.

There’s some evidence that treating hearing loss with hearing aids helps reduce dementia risk.

What you can do: take care of your hearing and see your doctor if you have hearing concerns.

Find out more about what you can do to reduce your dementia risk, or explore more risk factors.

High LDL cholesterol

Cholesterol is a substance that your body uses to build cells, digest food and make things like vitamin D.

Your body contains two types of cholesterol: low-density lipoprotein (LDL) cholesterol and high-density lipoprotein (HDL). High levels of LDL cholesterol increase your risk for heart disease, stroke and dementia. HDL cholesterol clears away LDL cholesterol for your liver to break down. So maintaining a high level of HDL cholesterol, and reducing your LDL cholesterol, can reduce your dementia risk.

What you can do: change to a low-LDL diet and talk to your doctor about measuring your cholesterol levels.

Find out more about what you can do to reduce your dementia risk, or explore more risk factors.

Depression

Experiencing depression at any time during your life, but especially across the middle of your life, increases your likelihood of developing dementia.

Exactly why depression increases your dementia risk is still being researched. Stress is a part of everyday life, but when high levels of stress persists over time, it can cause vascular changes and chemical imbalances that are damaging to the brain and other cells in your body.

Having a depressive disorder often leads to social isolation and decreased mental stimulation, which are both dementia risk factors.

Depressive disorders are a risk factor for developing dementia, but it also works the other way: people living with dementia are more likely to experience depression. Find out more on our Depression and dementia page.

What you can do: talk to your doctor about your mental health. Depression is treatable.

Find out more about what you can do to reduce your dementia risk, or explore more risk factors.

Traumatic brain injury

Traumatic brain injury (TBI) refers to damage to the brain caused by an external physical force, like an impact or knock to the head. Experiencing repeated head impacts or knocks over a lifetime can increase your risk of developing dementia.

In some cases, the impact is severe, for example through accidents, war, family violence, or participation in high-impact contact sports. However, even repeated mild head knocks or lower-impact events like heading a soccer ball, can, over time, contribute to an increased dementia risk.

One possible long-term outcome of traumatic brain injury is chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE). Read more on our chronic traumatic encephalopathy page.

What you can do: protect your head, avoid impacts and talk to your doctor if you’re concerned about knocks you’ve had in the past.

Find out more about what you can do to reduce your dementia risk, or explore more risk factors.

Physical inactivity

Living a sedentary lifestyle increases your risk of developing dementia. Not getting enough physical activity can lead to reduced brain volume, lower oxygen uptake, cognitive decline and increases in your other risk factors.

Regular physical activity increases the amount of oxygen your brain gets, and it’s good for your mental health and happiness.

What you can do: get active! Even a small increase makes a big difference.

Find out more about what you can do to reduce your dementia risk, or explore more risk factors.

Diabetes

Developing any form of diabetes increases your risk of developing dementia. Exactly how diabetes does this isn’t fully understood yet, although we know that diabetes increases your risk of stroke and high blood pressure, and insulin resistance affects the amyloid β and tau proteins associated with Alzheimer’s disease.

What you can do: talk to your doctor about your diabetes risk, and how you can manage diabetes if you’re diagnosed.

Find out more about what you can do to reduce your dementia risk, or explore more risk factors.

Smoking

Smoking during your adult life increases your risk of developing dementia, as well as many other health problems, including cardiovascular diseases and several forms of cancer.

Dementia risk is far lower in former smokers than current smokers. This means the added dementia risk from smoking is not irreversible: the sooner you quit smoking, the more you can reduce your risk.

What you can do: talk to your doctor or Quit about how you can stop smoking.

Find out more about what you can do to reduce your dementia risk, or explore more risk factors.

High blood pressure

Untreated high blood pressure, also known as hypertension, increases your risk of developing dementia. Having high blood pressure during the middle of your life puts you at risk of heart disease, stroke and damage to the small blood vessels in the brain, all of which contribute to your dementia risk.

What you can do: talk to your doctor about how you can better manage your blood pressure, and treatments for high blood pressure. Treating hypertension lowers your dementia risk.

Find out more about what you can do to reduce your dementia risk, or explore more risk factors.

Weight

Being overweight or underweight during your adult life increases your risk of developing dementia. Maintaining a weight that is healthy for you across your adult life is good for your heart, blood pressure and brain, and reduces your dementia risk.

What you can do: eat a healthy diet, be more physically active. Talk to a health professional about your options.

Find out more about what you can do to reduce your dementia risk, or explore more risk factors.

Excessive alcohol

Drinking an excessive amount of alcohol increases your risk of dementia. The more you drink, the higher your dementia risk.

What you can do: drink less. Any reduction helps. Follow the Australian Government alcohol guidelines and talk to your doctor if you’re concerned about your drinking habits.

Find out more about what you can do to reduce your dementia risk, or explore more risk factors.

Social isolation

Being socially isolated increases your risk of developing dementia. ‘Social isolation’ here refers to a combination of living alone, not seeing friends or family very often or not being part of regular group activities.

Some people like more social activity and some are happy with less, so another way to measure this risk is loneliness: a feeling that you don’t get enough social contact. People who report feeling more lonely also have a higher dementia risk.

Loneliness and social isolation are also associated with depression and reduced mental stimulation, which are also dementia risk factors.

What you can do: explore new ways to connect socially with other people, to a level that works for you.

Find out more about what you can do to reduce your dementia risk, or explore more risk factors.

Air pollution

Exposure to polluted air across the course of your life increases your risk of developing dementia. Air pollution refers to very small particles, like the soot in wood smoke, and polluting gasses like nitrogen oxide, sulphur oxide, carbon monoxide and ozone.

The more polluted the air you’re exposed to, and the longer you’re exposed to it, the higher your dementia risk.

Air pollution is often thought of as happening outside, but indoor air can also be polluted and there are many causes.

What you can do: it’s not always easy to control where you live to minimise outdoor air pollution, but there are things you can do at home to reduce pollution indoors. Visit the Australian Government’s Indoor air quality page for information and tips.

Find out more about what you can do to reduce your dementia risk, or explore more risk factors.

Untreated vision loss

Losing some or all of your vision increases your risk of developing dementia if it goes untreated.

The more severe your vision loss, and the longer it goes untreated, the more your risk increases. This risk factor applies all through your life, including as you get older.

Research into why untreated vision loss increases your dementia risk is ongoing. It’s possible that the loss of vision directly affects risk, or it could be an association between vision loss and other conditions like diabetes, or linked to social isolation that many people with vision loss or blindness experience.

What you can do: take care of your eyes, get regular vision tests, and at the first sign of trouble with your vision, talk to an optometrist or your doctor. For more, visit Vision Australia’s page on maintaining eye health.

Find out more about what you can do to reduce your dementia risk, or explore more risk factors.

Ageing

Age is a dementia risk factor you can't modify.

Your risk of developing dementia increases as you age, but dementia is not a normal part of ageing.

After you turn 65, your likelihood of developing dementia doubles once every five or so years.

Find out more about what you can do to reduce your dementia risk, or explore more risk factors.

Genetics and family history

Genetics is a dementia risk factor you can't modify.

Your genes play a role in how likely you are to develop some of the medical conditions that can lead to dementia. Genetic variations can make you more likely to develop some forms of Alzheimer’s disease and frontotemporal dementia, for example. Visit our Genetics and dementia page to learn more.

The genetic variations that cause Down syndrome greatly increase your risk of developing Alzheimer’s disease. Learn more on our Down syndrome and Alzheimer’s disease page.

Inherited forms of dementia are rare, but if there’s a history of dementia in your family, talk to your doctor.

Find out more about what you can do to reduce your dementia risk, or explore more risk factors.

Source

This list of risk factors is drawn from 'Dementia prevention, intervention, and care: 2024 report of the Lancet standing Commission'.

All content published on Dementia Australia’s websites is for information purposes only and does not constitute medical, legal or financial advice. Talk to a qualified professional. Dementia Australia does not accept liability for any injury, loss or damage caused by use of the information on this website.