With dementia rates projected to rise, northerners call for better elder care in Nunavut
Study projects rates among Indigenous people in Canada to go up by 273 per cent by 2050
Most of Embassy West’s 70 Inuit patients have dementia, says Department of Health spokesperson Danarae Sommerville. The GN has a contract with the Ottawa long-term care facility because there is no capacity in Nunavut to provide this type of specialized care. (File photo by Jeff Pelletier)
Dementia cases among Indigenous people in Canada could spike in coming decades, warns the Alzheimer Society of Canada.
The society released a study Jan. 22 that found the number of dementia cases among this demographic is estimated to increase by 273 per cent by 2050, as opposed to 187 per cent among the general population of Canada.
The reason has a lot to do with age. Fewer than five per cent of Indigenous people in Canada were over the age of 65 in 2005. That number will be closer to 15 per cent by 2036, the study said.
It includes no data specific to Nunavut, said Dr. Joshua Armstrong, a research scientist with Alzheimer Society of Canada and lead author of the report.
He said the North wasn’t included in the study because the group that did the modelling wasn’t confident with the data from the territories.
The number-one risk factor for dementia is old age, according to Armstrong.
“We often think about Indigenous populations as being younger, but if you look at the demographic data there is a growing number of people over the age of 65,” he said.
While this may be true for the broader Indigenous population, Statistics Canada census data from 2021 indicates Nunavut has a different demographic makeup.
There are roughly 40,000 people in Nunavut, with 12,000 of them under 14 and nearly 10,000 between the ages of 15 and 30. The study projects to 2050, when more than half of Nunavut’s population will still be 57 or younger.
Age, however, isn’t the only dementia risk, according to the study.
It noted that socioeconomic circumstances, health, racism and colonization can play roles in higher rates of dementia among Indigenous populations.
Dr. Joshua Armstrong is an Alzheimer Society of Canada researcher and lead author of the study that found dementia among Indigenous people of Canada will almost triple in the coming decades. (Photo courtesy Dr. Joshua Armstrong)
It’s still a growing area of research, Armstrong said, “but the idea is that racism … chronic racism, racism on a daily basis, leads to chronic stress.
“And it’s been long known that chronic stress has a negative impact on the brain … which then leads to dementia outcomes as people get older.”
Even if Nunavut doesn’t see the same spike in dementia cases that could occur in other places, there are currently no specialized supports in the territory for people living with it.
Ottawa’s Embassy West long-term care centre has 70 Nunavummiut elders, the majority of whom have a diagnosis of dementia, said Department of Health spokesperson Danarae Sommerville. She did not provide exact numbers.
Anne Crawford, an elder-care advocate and legal representative for the Iqaluit Elders Society, said having to leave home is bad for those with dementia.
“What people need is familiar surroundings, regular regularity and predictability of people you’re in contact with, and of events and repetition of things that you already know,” she said.
“Aging in place is the best possible choice.”
Crawford called on the Nunavut government to sponsor the training and development of psychologists from northern communities, so in turn better dementia diagnosis and treatment is available in the North.
Nunavut MP Lori Idlout agrees, saying neither the federal government nor the GN are doing enough to keep elders in their home communities.
She spoke about the issue in 2021 in the House of Commons and Northern Affairs Minister Dan Vandal said at the time he’d be happy to hold discussions with her on the topic. This has not yet happened, Idlout told Nunatsiaq News this week.
Idlout called the practice of sending Inuit elders south for long-term care a type of exile.
“It’s bad enough that they’ve experienced many atrocities throughout their lifetimes,” she said, adding both levels of government could do things like make sure families are trained to take care of their elders who have specific needs, like dementia.
A 24-bed elders facility in Rankin Inlet is expected to be completed later this year. It will accommodate people with dementia, although it’s not clear how much of that specialized capacity it will have.
There are two more elder-care facilities planned for Iqaluit and Cambridge Bay, but the GN did not provide a timeline for their completion.
I see we have decided to forgo a serious conversation about the causes of dementia and alzheimer’s, opting instead to invoke ‘cOlOnIaLiSm and rAyCiSm’
What a joke… I guess we don’t really care about prevention?
It is so exhausting. I am particularly annoyed with Nunatsiaq for allowing this kind of superficial explanation to stand on its own, especially when there is good science pointing towards the real causes of dementia. I would suggest we need to talk a lot more about lifestyle, especially diet and sleep.
But no, that’s real work, and journalists are in a hurry to pump out those stories. It’s much easier to fall back on the catchall of racism (great for reader engagement by the way), the cause of every ill in society and now, apparently, the body. Let’s see some science on that? Some studies, data, evidence?
Until that presents itself, I would suggest an article like this does a massive disservice to indigenous people who will be told their fate is in the hands of abstract forces they can’t control, rather than being educated on an important issue.
Here is an interesting study I came across recently that discusses the connection between our gut microbiomes and inflammation in the body, in particular the brain, and its subsequent relationship to Alzheimer’s, the most common cause of dementia.
https://www.nia.nih.gov/news/beyond-brain-gut-microbiome-and-alzheimers-disease
“Journalism seems to increasingly optimize for drama over truth.
It uses everything from misrepresentation of cherry-picked quotes/events/data to downright fabricated info and lies, which bait the “other side” to respond and thus generate even more drama, creating a vicious cycle.”
But then again Nunatsiaq News has done and is doing well to allow more and a wider range of opinion and comments than say the CBC, and still retain a high standard of reporting. As conglomerates maul the media landscape we would do well to support the news service. God knows it is needed in a world teetering on the edge of another and maybe the final World War.
So, your comment is relevant to this article because….you are just so darn excited that you remembered how to use optimize properly in a sentence? And so you decided the immediate story had no bearing on the important things you were thinking? Good job you! But that won’t help anyone who needs support for their elders or themselves access assessment, treatment or just simple care.
Thanks, Sosad and iWonder. You are right. NN serving up this tupe of poorly edited headline followed by a poorly researched and heavily dogmatic article reeks of National Enquirer-level scribbling
I recall, a few premiers ago, a group of very narrow focused mlas voted down the funding for the land preparation for the elders care unit in Cambridge Bay. They were mad at the government side and the demise of the kugluktuk elders care plan, so they voted down the expenditures for the Cambridge Bay site, and I think John main was part of that protest. It has turned out to be an incredibly short sighted and vindictive decision that has meant many Kitikmeot elders are ending up in Ottawa far far away from their families, and we have no facilities being developed in either cb or kugluktuk. Political games causing family dislocations and incredibly disrespect for the elders of the western communities. Do better, do no harm, make a difference should be the motto for our elected officials, shame on you all for not paying attention to the consequences of your actions.
Treatment of Elders in Nunavut is a tragedy in every sense, East, West and in between.
It is time that the bureaucracy looked at itself and asked, where did we fail?
My number one solution is support for families, including foster parent like payments for providing care and nursing supports for at home needs. Show me that program Minister Main. Tell families what the at home options could be! Id like to see the ads in Nunatsiaq News.
Every week , some thing new to put in your ” FEAR FACTOR ” rolodex.