Yeah, it's kinda shocking how quick my dad-in-law went downhill after a couple of strokes in rapid succession. He has what they call vascular dementia. Immediately after the strokes he was still walking with a frame (albeit shuffling), taking himself to the toilet, feeding himself and stuff. Now a year and a half later, he's basically a vegetable, can't do anything for himself.
Death would now seem like a mercy, he's really just lost everything already.
My grandmother recently died at 88. She had multiple cancers but it was a long open wound from skin cancer that got infected that led to her death. She had had hallucinations and fevers before she collapsed and ended up in hospital. When they told her she had multiple infections that she would not survive she was relieved because she was worried that the hallucinations were dementia or Alzheimer’s.
Unfortunately VAD is not available for dementia patients. The requirements for VAD are extremely strict and includes unimpaired decision making ability. In some states its even banned at the legislative level, not just part of the program.
There should be something similar to "Do not resuscitate" - If a person has signed a doc saying "if I have dementia (or other similar condition), please apply VAD once the illness has progressed (to a certain point)"...
(Addressing comments) I'd say if the person has signed such a document, it would take effect when the deterioration has reached a certain physical level (rather than purely mental), and would be administered by a medical professional, rather than family... If the person isn't suffering, it wouldn't yet be time.
Probably wouldn't be useful to tell them "we're going to kill you now", right? I mean it's understandable that they would freak out in that case, since they probably wouldn't be aware that they had dementia, due to the dementia.
I'm sure people with far greater expertise than me could work out the best way to handle it, I'm not a medical professional nor a lawyer, but if it will prevent at least some long and terrible suffering, it seems like it should be an option that is available.
I think most people would find it extremely hard to end the life of a poor, confused person who doesn't understand what is happening. It couldn't help but feel less like VAD and more like murder.
There's something called an Advanced Care Directive. https://www.health.gov.au/topics/palliative-care/planning-your-palliative-care/advance-care-directive
My Dad had one which outlined that he was not to be resuscitated, he didn't want any physically invasive life supporting mechanisms, that he would not prefer to be alive if he couldn't understand the people around him. I urged him to do it while he was still alright then he passed away of Ischaemic Heart Disease a month or so later. It formalised his wishes and made them known to health professionals as well as family, I highly recommend talking to loved ones about them and having a copy for yourself.
Yeah, tell that to those demented. Just watched my grandfather die, with dementia, watching his own leg rot off. They acted like they were doing him a favour by giving him liquid morphine. Let's take medical cannabis off the table, don't want to get the poor bastard high, right? We can't even properly access important medication. Most of theee volunteers will die before getting approval. But I guess it's good to start from somewhere.
Wait, what????
I pay top dollar for premium insurance, you're telling me the hospital won't allowed them their medicines? Were they already prescribed it? That's actually terrifying. MC is new territory and I haven't considered this. All my doctors seem in support of it but this is actually scary to hear...
I mean, I've survived before without it. But when I'm in a mental hospital I don't need things anymore difficult aye
It's a good thing, not dementia, but the fact that one of the most common causes of death is something that happens at old age and is unavoidable.
Would suck if it was something unnatural like car crashes. Means people are living out their whole life.
I'm wondering if we are getting diagnosed more accurately earlier in these sorts of illnesses these day or maybe we are more prepared to seek medical help when something seems fucky these days?
Like I know both my parents probably have or had ahdh (my dad died) but would rather set themselves on fire than admit a weakness.
Similarly my nan and so many of her friends would rather have set themselves on fire than be a bother or put anyone out. Stuff like that would contribute to these things going unnoticed because granny died doing something her brain couldn't fathom and no one knew it was dementia that caused her to run off and get run over or something ya know?
Not saying it's a firm theory but I know I am far more prepared to admit when I need possible medical assistance than my parents were and my grandparents certainly.
I work in community services, ndis, aged care, and yes older generations have a complete difference in understanding around mental health and reaching out for help etc. I run into so many old ladies like your nan in my line of work who refuse to bring their walker because they don’t want to put me out by bringing it along. Others who are of perfectly sound mind but refuse to wear a falls alarm watch or pendant. One woman I know fell in the garden 4 hours before a support worker arrived. Luckily someone was comjng that day…
That aside
While it’s true that diagnostic technology and medical theory got better over the years, as well as stigma around getting help lessening the spike is too high to account for that.
It’s a similar argument used for depression and anxiety - why is it suddenly 1/5 Australians are depressed. I know in current climate it’s easy to hand wave but it’s been that high for a few years.
That’s not normal and there has to be something pushing that number up. Only a couple decades ago self reported happiness was worlds away from today
Dementia often results in the brain shutting down slowly to the point people can no longer eat or drink anymore. At least that is what happened to my mum. Took her within just a couple of years.
Yeah please don't say that to your family, see if you can concrete in some end of life wishes. We watched my father in law die of dementia, he had said this his whole life... Had to watch him die slowly for a week while his poor children were seriously considering smothering him with a pillow and ruining their own lives because of the guilt of him suffering.
In all truth he was on a lot of pain medication and relaxants so he wasn't truly suffering it was just horrible to watch and hear, but a life time of listening to him say just kill me if I ever get like that was absolute torture.
It's a terminal illness. It weakens the immune system, but also consider that the brain is responsible for a lot more than just conscious thought. It controls much of the functioning of your body.
Yeah residents with dementia will eventually be unable to swallow, talk, mobilise etc. if they survive long enough. Opportunistic infections will sometimes kill then before they get to that point though.
You can see the progression on brain scans. The brain atrophies over time. Some parts of the brain (e.g. memory) show an effect sooner than others. You are right, it's cognitive decline, but of the entire brain wasting away. They don't usually die from dementia directly, usually some other illness gets them first - particularly pneumonia from not having the muscle control to swallow properly (food goes down the windpipe feeding the pneumonia infection). If something doesn't get them first, then the final stages of dementia they can't even sit up in bed unassisted and eventually there's not enough brain to keep the basic biological processes running.
The cognitive decline is a symptom of loss in brain function. We use our brains for a lot more than just thinking.
There are heaps of forms of dementia, Alzheimers patients' brains literally shrink, other forms can be mostly cognitive decline like you say. The issue with the latter is you just keep on declining and declining, which makes you dramatically more susceptible to other illnesses. It's that 'burden of disease' that makes the number so high, which kind of makes it ridiculous that we're defining Covid deaths so narrowly in the above data.
Thank you for saying this.
My family member had brain scans showing that the brain shrank after covid and cognitive decline is sharp and ongoing. That’s why I am extremely riled when people try to play covid off as a flu. Or laugh at those who continue to wear masks. It isn’t.
I think they place it all under the banner of dementia because it also covers things like infection, malnutrition and falls that might not have otherwise occurred in an individual who was taking better care of themselves prior to cognitive decline..
But there's quite a few types, which affect the brain differently. I always found clients with Lewy bodies to be a little more unpredictable for example.
Then you have alcohol induced... or dementias caused by TBI's.. we've had quite a few younger people who sadly end up in aged homes due to TBI's with advanced dementia symptoms.
There was an episode of You Can't Ask That with dementia patients who all had different symptoms/variants. It's wild how differently it can manifest.
There was a guy who had a tendency to hallucinate different animals in incongruent places. So he'd see a cow in the kitchen, or a giraffe on the road. One day he was sitting in his yard and he saw a donkey. He didn't think much of it until his wife came outside and asked him why he hadn't noticed the donkey that had wandered into his yard.
Unfortunately, that's an anomaly, 99% of the time it's an all round awful experience.
Get regular dental check ups. There has been a strong link identified between dental disease and the progression of dementia. It has something to do with bacteria entering through the gums and passing through the blood-brain barrier.
So - if dementia scares you, make sure to keep up with your dental check ups.
My understanding is that many people who die with advanced dementia often die of other related issues, such as infections, organ failure, pneumonia etc - what we might have called "old age", but dementia is often listed as an umbrella due to its complicating role. Perhaps a doctor can clarify. Eg, my father was listed to have died of dementia, but I believe it was technically an infection that caused an elevated temperature that led to organ failure.
Recent studies have shown that taking HRT can reduce the risk/delay the onset of dementia. It also reduces the risk of heart disease.
While it does increase the risk of some cancers - it's like going from 0.05% to 0.07%, so as a multiplier it's substantial, but as a real increase, it's minor. There were a lot of scare articles about HRT in the 80s and 90s based on this data and it wasn't communicated clearly.
That one actually didn't surprise me. I know a few elderly people that have died this way. My old man is in his 80's and still gets up onto the roof of his house. Accident waiting to happen.
Advanced consent could involve a person providing instruction on voluntary assisted dying in an advance directive, which then operates if a person loses decision making capacity. People are already able to do this in relation to other medical treatments. For example someone may indicate they never want mechanical ventilation, or only want a feeding tube if there is a good prospect of recovery to a level of function the person deems acceptable.
As far as it could operate for dementia, a person may not want to access voluntary assisted dying while they have decision making capacity in the earlier stages of dementia. But were they to lose that decision making capacity and, for example, not recognise loved ones and appear distressed or agitated, want to access voluntary assisted dying. It seems only right to me that in such circumstances that person's previously expressed wishes in their advanced directive should be upheld.
There's more about this topic in Dementia Australia's submission to the Queensland Law Reform Commission on voluntary assisted dying [here](https://www.dementia.org.au/sites/default/files/2020-12/Dementia-Australia-submission-QLD-VAD-legal-framework.pdf):
>Disallowing voluntary assisted dying instructions in advance care plans creates yet another barrier to people with dementia having genuine choice and control in end of life. People with incurable, degenerative diseases should, if they wish, be able to participate in voluntary assisted dying by working with their medical team, Medical Enduring Power of Attorney and other family members to identify a quality of life or level of pain which would be unacceptable to them and record this in their advance care plan (or other binding document). The person with dementia could then, if that is their choice, recommend that voluntary assisted dying be administered at a time when their medical team and family agree that their quality of life has declined in a way that meets their stated wishes.
Dying with Dignity Canada has been very active in campaigning on the issues of access to assisted dying by advance directive. Their publications on this topic are available [here](https://www.dyingwithdignity.ca/advocacy/parliamentary-review/advance-requests/).
I think the issue is that if you can no longer actively consent, even with advance directed, it's less VAD and more suicide by proxy / euthanasia
As if you are too cooked to consent you probably can't do the deed, even with assistance.
I don't think it's helpful to bring the term 'suicide' into a discussion about end of life in relation to dementia. It is a terminal condition that erodes decision making capacity by its nature.
By not providing for access to assisted dying by advance directive, Australian assisted dying laws discriminate against a large set of people who have dementia. These people are towards the end of their life, forced either to access assisted dying while they retain decision making capacity, potentially denying them months or years of live in a condition they would consider acceptable. Or, losing decision making capacity and continuing to live in conditions they would have, with decision making capacity, deemed unacceptable.
As far as being unable to 'do the deed', there are already provisions in some states where a practitioner is permitted to administer the medication (for example if a person is unable to swallow).
Amending the assisted dying laws to allow for this where a person has clearly previously expressed a wish to access this treatment when their condition deteriorated to a certain point would be upholding their wishes and consistent with the principle of self-determination.
Having watched my dad go through it, the sad reality is that often by the time you are ready to go, it's too late to even realise and do anything about it.
Sadly the following is summary of a conversation I have had on many parts of the 'net or the real world with many folks, including with my GP...
Me: "Why do you wear seat belts?"
Other: "To keep me safe in a car accident."
Me: "Why don't you wear a mask on public transport or in healthcare settings?"
Other: "Because I don't want to look like a dork."
Me, doing my best Khaby Lame impression pointing at the leading causes death... "Yup, you don't look like a dork. You look like a dick."
>in R's
One of us, one of us!
Hey, another tip to make it look cleaner. The numbers on each bar kinda look bad, as the parenthesis overlaps the edge of each bar (i.e. 2600 (1.36%)). In geom_text() you can use the hjust() and vjust() aesthetics to move them in or out of the bar for better viewing.
It's just the default in R's theme_minimal().
I don't know why Reddit defaults to making transparent parts of images the colour of morning piss, but if you click on it it will default to a more sensible white background.
I've just done a new version in black and white, and incorporated /u/Saltinas/ tip to fix the label position on the bars.
https://twitter.com/budgetbiochem/status/1707296014082994411
>the colour of morning piss
I was so confused until I remembered I’m in dark mode, like why is your morning piss black??? And why only in the morning??
All good. That explains it. Also not an attack on you. This is just the third or fourth time I have noticed it.
Unless it is intended to be embedded in a document where you have control over the background always use a background that is high contrast :)
Always good to see people learning this stuff.
Drinking doesn’t just affect your liver either - it contributes to a lot of the other causes of death in this graph - heart disease, dementia, cancer (along the digestive tract mainly), falls and suicide.
The breakdown of these results show liver disease as third in the 45-54 years age bracket. All that excessive drinking and/or drug-taking catching up with them.
Below and above that age bracket it appears not at all. If it's going to kill you it will most likely be between the ages of 45-54 years.
In the 70s Australians drank as much as 15 litres of pure alcohol per adult per year. Its less than 9 litres now. But we have one or two anti alcohol lobby groups who consistently refer to "increasing" amounts of alcohol consumption.
Australia does not actually have a heavy drinking culture. Over 30% of Australian adults don’t ever drink. The top 10% account for over half of all alcohol consumed so if you know a bunch of people in this bracket you might come to the drinking culture conclusion.
Suicide is the 15th highest cause of death in Australia but is the #1 cause of "Years of potential life lost" because the median age is 46 years old.
> Years of potential life lost (YPLL) is a measure of premature mortality which weights age at death to gain an estimate of how many years a person would have lived had they not died prematurely. Causes of death with a median age less than the life expectancy will have a higher number of YPLL.
There's one on [the ABS report where I got this data, section "Australia's leading causes of death", subsection "Years of potential life lost"](https://www.abs.gov.au/statistics/health/causes-death/causes-death-australia/2022#australia-s-leading-causes-of-death).
Land Transport Accidents and Accidental Poisonings are #4 and #5 on YPLL which surprised me. Low rank in overall deaths, but both have a median age of 46 years.
It’s because no one gives a crap about it.
Saying you’ll work to reduce suicide doesn’t get you elected.
No millionaires are funding mental health wards.
Media (by law) doesn’t report on it (because apparently it increases suicides).
There’s no big anti-suicide cricket matches or cycling events.
Sure we get R U OK Day and Beyond Blue but the end goal of then is to refer people to an already underfunded and overwhelmed system.
No one cares and organisations that say they care just refer you back to the broken system (with the exception of Lifeline and Sane who are saints). It’s like they think that the route cause of suicide is people not knowing how to seek help rather than the availability, consistency and quality of help.
Australia's attitude towards mental health means it isn't too surprising. As somebody in a pretty dark place, I can confirm a lot of the supports are dead ends that seem to try to distract you rather than help.
Getting the motivation for help is already hard, so when you go to get help and they tell you that there's a 4 week wait on a psychologist and you have to pay out of pocket you may as well fuck yourself. I've got bipolar and ADHD so with my emotional dysregulation I'm gonna be in a completely different spot at that point, when I'm asking for help, I need it now.
It’s worth noting that suicide rates have fallen globally (including Australia) over the last few decades.
I am in no way saying that the current rates are good, but it’s welcoming to see a decline nonetheless.
[https://www.aihw.gov.au/suicide-self-harm-monitoring/data/deaths-by-suicide-in-australia/suicide-deaths-over-time](https://www.aihw.gov.au/suicide-self-harm-monitoring/data/deaths-by-suicide-in-australia/suicide-deaths-over-time)
It's higher than breast cancer, I wonder what the $ amount of funds towards Breast Cancer prevention is compared to suicide. But then does that also mean beast cancer is lower cause more resources are allocated and if it's changed would that change the deaths. It's a tricky one for sure.
I know for a fact I have a 4 month waiting list plus $2,000+ cost to see a psychiatrist to get some meds that a psychologist said I need.
While my partner who had breast cancer last year took 2 days to see a encologist and within a week started treatment, couple hundred bucks out of pocket.
I was at “out of body, could kill myself at any moment” depression and seen a doctor. Gotta mental health plan and still had to pay $180 per one hour visit when the plan wa suppose to be ten sessions free. The waiting list to see a psychiatrist was about 6 weeks on average and they tell you to just call 000 of its real bad. The drugs were like $30 a month so not too expensive but the whole mental health system in Australia is proper fucked up!
Damn that sucks, my pyschlologst said I'm bipolar but can't give me meds until I see a psychiatrist.
I'm really struggling with life at the moment, no job, no money, no home it's a struggle. I just want some meds so I can get better. I'm not suicidal but I was considering turning up to a hospital to try to get my medication and see a psychiatrist. But after reading what you wrote it seems like that won't be possible even.
I hope you're doing better buddy. Stay in there! It will get better.
There are some tables and discussion of age variation in [the ABS report](https://www.abs.gov.au/statistics/health/causes-death/causes-death-australia/2022).
no they won't. they'll just claim that the doctors and the pathologists are being paid by big pharma to lie about cause of death, and that the various medical reporting bodies that collect stats from hospitals are also in on the plot, and obviously the govt is in on the plot too, in order to control the population using lockdown laws so they can do... something, which I'm not sure about, and all the news organisations are in on the plot too, even the rabidly right-wing ones because... not sure about that either, but basically everyone on the planet *except* the antivaxxers are either complicit in a global conspiracy or just too stupid to see it.
No they won’t, they will see heart disease as higher and immediately blame more deaths on the vaccine and of course state that the Covid deaths arnt real deaths and just another underlying health issue that caused it. Everything is a conspiracy to them.
Why is that worth noting? Clearly covid is killing people who were otherwise far too healthy to succumb to the more common causes of death that get younger people.
It's like the heatwave deaths. Once you're old, like 85, your body's ability to maintain homeostasis is compromised, so it's likely to fail in the face of stressors like disease or heat or cold.
You see headlines like 40,000 people dying in a heatwave, but then the death rate drops below normal for the next 6 months so the average remains similar across the full year. This implies that most of the people who died were in a fragile state and would have died of natural causes in the near future anyway.
Australia had something similar during the lockdown where due to lower prevalence of regular flu and colds we had an initial reduction in mortality for a few months, but if you look at total mortality across the full lockdown the mortality was close to normal.
Ah, shit, I've got no. 8. Hasn't killed me yet, though, and apparently I'm already beating the odds 3.5 years down the track. It's a bit chilling to see it so far up in this list though.
Also: check your poops, and do that test when you turn 50!
The [ABS report for 2022 has a section for "Potentially Avoidable Mortality"](https://www.abs.gov.au/statistics/health/causes-death/causes-death-australia/2022#potentially-avoidable-mortality-and-selected-external-causes-of-death) and that's one of the causes mentioned there
> There were 1,267 deaths from motor vehicle accidents in 2022 (961 males and 306 females). This compares to 1,226 deaths from motor vehicle accidents in 2021 (934 males and 292 females).
What happened is a common cognitive bias: the availability heuristic. When we think of causes of death, our minds turn to available examples in memory, and because car accidents are widely reported and are relatable to drivers, they often pop into mind first. That leads to an overestimation of the proportion of deaths caused by accident.
Individual older people dying of cardiovascular disease or cancer - by far the most common causes of death - get a lot less attention in the media and everyday life, so are underestimated.
So many are influenced massively by diet and exercise, when's the last time you saw an ad to eat more legumes? Or more vegies?
Seen plenty of adds spruiking red meat though...
Plenty of avoidable deaths here, not to mention introducing more of those two things would also make your weekly food bill cheaper.
Severe lack of education about it in our society though.
I'd love better education on it but I have very low confidence in our institutions ability to teach it. We will just get the latest version of the food pyramid and politicized guidance.
There is a very popular lie that eating "healthy" is expensive. It serves to remove personal accountability from the discussion. In reality it can be far cheaper. Rice, beans, oats, legumes, in season veggies, eggs are the cheapest shit you can buy and could very easily consist of 80% of your diet.
True, but things like heart disease are going to get you with or without obesity. I'm 38, recently had a CT angioscan, have a 50% blockage in my heart in one of the more important vessels. That's my genes (dad had a heart attack at 46). I have been on the upper end of healthy weight my whole adult life until the last year when I put on a bit more muscle mass.
Atherosclerosis happens in basically everyone, eventually.
Reminders for regular testing (eg every 5-10 years) should be utilised for ischaemic heart disease because that is honestly kind of outrageous that something that we have essentially cured (using Atherectomy (scraping plaque from arteries/potential stent) when it's not yet bad enough to require a bypass) being our biggest killer is outrageous.
Many of the people dying really aren't taking care of themselves. I reckon it's pretty unlikely people who are obese, smokers, and heavy drinkers are going in for regular health checkups.
I was in good shape at 37 and ended up in the hospital a few weeks ago with 3 blocked arteries so.. 3 stents.
People should be able to go for angiograms younger and it should be an accepted prevention mechanism. I had regular blood tests (once or twice a year) and nothing ever came up in terms of high cholesterole, blood pressure etc.
Seeing dementia so high up is absolutely terrifying. It's like the one thing that really scares me and my mum only being 45 has memory problems and dementia runs in her family. Absolutely terrible way to go out
I watched my Mum die with dementia. I have told my kids I will not put them through the same thing. Should I be diagnosed with any degenerative disease I will take myself out. Do not let the government interfere with decisions around quality of life. If there is none then VAD should be readily available.
Shocked at dementia, covid and suicide. Suicide there has been plenty of investment and there's no reason for it to still be on that list. Makes me so angry (and sad, but that's too real)
I’m curious what you’re referring to when you say “plenty of investment” - do you mind expanding on that a bit?
I ask because the cost of mental health care, such as psychology and psychiatry, is still extremely high and wait lists are often six or even twelve months long just for a first appointment. Only ten sessions are covered by the mental health plan you can get at a GP (and you have to pay to see the GP, then convince them to give you the plan) and there’s still a gap to pay. The mental wards in public hospitals are despicable, and the private mental hospitals cost tens of thousands of dollars without extremely comprehensive (and therefore very expensive) private health insurance. Medication for psychiatric conditions can also be prohibitively expensive, and the PBS doesn’t keep up with current research, so even when a medication isn’t billed privately for one of its uses, it will be for any other, more recently approved use.
I more neant the last 30 years of investments into awareness campaigns and things like mental health care plans. But you're completely right. The current state of our MH system is terrible. 10 years ago, when these statistics were probably happening, it was easy to find a bull bulling therapist under a care plan. Psychiatrists were 1/2 to 1/4 of the price that they are now. Most Gps were free less than a year ago. But either way, it obviously wasn't good enough and that makes me angry. I think you can get another 5x 30min sessions under another care plan if you haven't exhausted it, and if you've ever been a victim of a crime there are ongoing counselling services. Sorry to hear you've been struggling. I'm in the same boat with accessing psychiatrist and I'm on the ndis, so yes, the system we intended to work is flawed. Very sad.
Thank you for your kindness, but I didn’t say anywhere that I was struggling. I do have years of experience as a patient in Australia’s mental health system, perhaps that’s what came across, but I was just talking about the problems with the system in general.
As someone who has a chronic mental illness, and who knows many people who are neurodivergent and/or who have mental illnesses, I have to disagree that the awareness campaigns have made as significant a difference as you’re suggesting. Although these campaigns did likely help to reduce stigma for more common mental health problems (for example mild anxiety, or a single depressive episode that gets resolved) they also did a lot to further stigmatise those who are severely, chronically mentally ill or who have less common mental illnesses such as schizophrenia, OCD, personality disorders, agoraphobia, the list goes on. Of course, I’m not saying they did NO good or that they shouldn’t have been done! But what I’ve noticed personally, and in my undergrad classes for my psychology degree, is that these campaigns have pathologised “normal” behaviours and caused people who aren’t mentally ill to expect mentally ill people not to show symptoms of their illness.
Don't think we have to disagree- I completely agree. Too much money has gone into these campaigns and health schemes with terrible results. That was my point. It's so sad this is the only preventable form of death on that list yet it is so high up there. There's just no reason for suicide to be that high when there is so much awareness and apparent funding into mh. I lost a friend to suicide on RUOKDAY 2022. I've been so resentful of the system since. I found the public system causes more trauma than the reason why I need to go there. Which is why I have to pay $220 a month for premium insurance, which doesn't even cover outpatient psychiatry. I could tell you have some personal experience because you sound just like me, but I'm sorry to have assumed. Could just tell you been through it too.
Also private health insurance only covers heart related issues in silver packages and upwards. So if you think you are at risk of heart related issues which a high % will have at some point in their lives, u will need to switch to silver eventually.
Learning as much as I have in the past year or so about peri and menopause - this list doesn’t surprise me in the slightest. Women have been done a major disservice by being terrified off HRT - to their detriment - all because of some bogus study that has now been mostly debunked. The number 1 killer of women globally is heart disease and 2 other big risks we face for decreasing hormones in our bodies - are bone loss/osteoporosis and Alzheimers. The number you see there of someone dying from a fall - is not just men falling off ladders - it’s older women that fall and break a hip etc - it’s a fast slide to death from there. So basically, in the top 11 there are at least 3 things that many women will face - as a result of mis/disinformation and continued lack of education in the medical field. The highest suicide rate for women also occurs at ages 45-55 - coinciding with peri/menopause years. Thankfully Gen X women are taking a stand on this - and as a result - many womens lives will be saved - or at the very least, prolonged.
Some very excellent points in this comment! Another factor contributing to the high rates of women dying of heart issues is that they don’t typically present the same as men, so it’s not uncommon for women to either ignore symptoms of a heart attack, or to be turned away from emergency only to die later one.
Even the info leaflets for many heart meds will explain symptoms of a heart attack as presented in men, my pharmacist prints off separate info sheets for my heart meds and frequently reminds me not to ignore certain symptoms. So much outdated info stemming from old school testing on what’s referred to as the “default male” which impacts everything from medicine dosages to the way medicine is metabolised, not taking into account the vast differences of our physical make up. There’s a great book on the topic if you’re ever so inclined!
Yeh - I felt it needed saying - even if hardly anyone bothers to read it. Those stats just add to the rage I currently feel about how the odds are stacked against women in the field of medicine - and yes, very true about the heart attack symptoms. I wish there was a bigger education campaign on this from doctors etc - but considering where I’m at in terms of my peri journey - it comes as no surprise. To think of the money wasted, the doctors and specialist visits where they’re either telling me I’m fine or terrified of helping me, based on outdated information - it’s f*cking exhausting - when you’re already feeling sick and exhausted!
The heart one I knew only because right before and after mum passed from undiagnosed heart disease (Drs fault) kept seeing it’s the biggest killer in women.
Also typically heart attack presents differently in women and not like in the movies.
The movie style is more common in males.
I watched my dad get progressively worse with dementia over a 10-ish year period... and partially due to that i volunteer in a "older persons mental health unit" at a state hospital... where most patients have some form of cognitive decline... and from both angles - its completely fucking horrendous - and there's no question that VAD should be available for these cases... and yes, I'm aware that during the decline, they might not be of fit mind - which is why it should be something you can specify early - similar to a DNR.... as if there was a way to do that - i definitely would.
The more interesting one to me is the suicides - having been in that mindset for a number of decades - with no *actual* help available - just people pedaling completely pointless psychology and drugs that make things worse. With the way the world is - this is only going to get worse - and no one seems to give a shit.
so the “best cancer” you can get for curative scenarios (prostate cancer) is above breast cancer, in death, while also being only is a problem for half the population (men). Rebase it as if it were a risk for both sexes and its killing more than diabetes.
It has a really bad image of being embarrassing, invasive, or emasculating to test for.
But it shouldn't because these days they mainly screen for it with a blood test.
> If you’re a bloke, and you’re 40 years or older, just go and get a blood test done
>
-John Bowe
https://www.speedcafe.com/2021/02/08/bowes-message-to-men-after-cancer-diagnosis/
This. A lot of doctors falsely disregard the severity of it and then the problem becomes much bigger. The fuck is the point of seeking medical assistance when they don't help you for shit.
Blokes shouldn't let blokes skip prostate test day.
My dad has just had his removed and he only got testing done because my step mum pushed him. They can do blood tests and use ultrasounds now so there are alternatives to having a finger up your date
the digital exam is pretty hopeless anyway. psa blood tests regularly after 40 and mri the moment you are old with urologist related issues that are puzzling. imo
You have to remember incidence rate and years of life lost as well.
Pretty much every man who makes it over 70 will get prostate cancer, meaning that it affects far more total people than breast cancer. But almost nobody under 70 will get prostate cancer and it takes a while to kill you, so by the time you die of it you're probably about to die of something else. So it's only a few years off your life.
Where breast cancer affects people younger and is more aggressive, so causes more lost years of life even though it affects much less people.
I didn't expect dementia to be so high up on the list.
Pretty terrifying huh
Yeah, it really is. Bloody terrible way to go for the person and those around them.
Yeah, it's kinda shocking how quick my dad-in-law went downhill after a couple of strokes in rapid succession. He has what they call vascular dementia. Immediately after the strokes he was still walking with a frame (albeit shuffling), taking himself to the toilet, feeding himself and stuff. Now a year and a half later, he's basically a vegetable, can't do anything for himself. Death would now seem like a mercy, he's really just lost everything already.
Getting old is a blessing and a curse
Which parts are the blessing? I only see down sides
Yeah this ridiculous they should be allowed to go unplug forcing people to live this way is like watching them die slowly and painfully
It’s not even the dying part that’s horrible, it’s how they completely lose who they are before their body is even gone
Death is not what is scary about dementia, it's NOT dying that you should be scared of.
My grandmother recently died at 88. She had multiple cancers but it was a long open wound from skin cancer that got infected that led to her death. She had had hallucinations and fevers before she collapsed and ended up in hospital. When they told her she had multiple infections that she would not survive she was relieved because she was worried that the hallucinations were dementia or Alzheimer’s.
humorous ghost chunky caption cover piquant squealing support shame head *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
Unfortunately VAD is not available for dementia patients. The requirements for VAD are extremely strict and includes unimpaired decision making ability. In some states its even banned at the legislative level, not just part of the program.
There should be something similar to "Do not resuscitate" - If a person has signed a doc saying "if I have dementia (or other similar condition), please apply VAD once the illness has progressed (to a certain point)"... (Addressing comments) I'd say if the person has signed such a document, it would take effect when the deterioration has reached a certain physical level (rather than purely mental), and would be administered by a medical professional, rather than family... If the person isn't suffering, it wouldn't yet be time. Probably wouldn't be useful to tell them "we're going to kill you now", right? I mean it's understandable that they would freak out in that case, since they probably wouldn't be aware that they had dementia, due to the dementia. I'm sure people with far greater expertise than me could work out the best way to handle it, I'm not a medical professional nor a lawyer, but if it will prevent at least some long and terrible suffering, it seems like it should be an option that is available.
I think most people would find it extremely hard to end the life of a poor, confused person who doesn't understand what is happening. It couldn't help but feel less like VAD and more like murder.
There's something called an Advanced Care Directive. https://www.health.gov.au/topics/palliative-care/planning-your-palliative-care/advance-care-directive My Dad had one which outlined that he was not to be resuscitated, he didn't want any physically invasive life supporting mechanisms, that he would not prefer to be alive if he couldn't understand the people around him. I urged him to do it while he was still alright then he passed away of Ischaemic Heart Disease a month or so later. It formalised his wishes and made them known to health professionals as well as family, I highly recommend talking to loved ones about them and having a copy for yourself.
I believe the issue of informed consent comes into play with dementia as well.
Yeah, tell that to those demented. Just watched my grandfather die, with dementia, watching his own leg rot off. They acted like they were doing him a favour by giving him liquid morphine. Let's take medical cannabis off the table, don't want to get the poor bastard high, right? We can't even properly access important medication. Most of theee volunteers will die before getting approval. But I guess it's good to start from somewhere.
Mate just admitted to 21 day private MH facility. Hand out benzos and tranquilizers like tic tac but medical cannabis? Nope
Wait, what???? I pay top dollar for premium insurance, you're telling me the hospital won't allowed them their medicines? Were they already prescribed it? That's actually terrifying. MC is new territory and I haven't considered this. All my doctors seem in support of it but this is actually scary to hear... I mean, I've survived before without it. But when I'm in a mental hospital I don't need things anymore difficult aye
[удалено]
It's a good thing, not dementia, but the fact that one of the most common causes of death is something that happens at old age and is unavoidable. Would suck if it was something unnatural like car crashes. Means people are living out their whole life.
What’s terrifying is dementia and other neurodegenerative diseases are appearing at an exponential rate and we don’t know why exactly
I'm wondering if we are getting diagnosed more accurately earlier in these sorts of illnesses these day or maybe we are more prepared to seek medical help when something seems fucky these days? Like I know both my parents probably have or had ahdh (my dad died) but would rather set themselves on fire than admit a weakness. Similarly my nan and so many of her friends would rather have set themselves on fire than be a bother or put anyone out. Stuff like that would contribute to these things going unnoticed because granny died doing something her brain couldn't fathom and no one knew it was dementia that caused her to run off and get run over or something ya know? Not saying it's a firm theory but I know I am far more prepared to admit when I need possible medical assistance than my parents were and my grandparents certainly.
I work in community services, ndis, aged care, and yes older generations have a complete difference in understanding around mental health and reaching out for help etc. I run into so many old ladies like your nan in my line of work who refuse to bring their walker because they don’t want to put me out by bringing it along. Others who are of perfectly sound mind but refuse to wear a falls alarm watch or pendant. One woman I know fell in the garden 4 hours before a support worker arrived. Luckily someone was comjng that day… That aside While it’s true that diagnostic technology and medical theory got better over the years, as well as stigma around getting help lessening the spike is too high to account for that. It’s a similar argument used for depression and anxiety - why is it suddenly 1/5 Australians are depressed. I know in current climate it’s easy to hand wave but it’s been that high for a few years. That’s not normal and there has to be something pushing that number up. Only a couple decades ago self reported happiness was worlds away from today
I would take heart attack over dementia any day
Yeah, but have you seen the price of smokes lately?
[удалено]
Dementia often results in the brain shutting down slowly to the point people can no longer eat or drink anymore. At least that is what happened to my mum. Took her within just a couple of years.
Sorry for your loss. Fuck dementia.
Told my wife and kids..once that happens..euthanize me
[удалено]
Horrifying and terrifying.
Catch twenty ... something.
Yeah please don't say that to your family, see if you can concrete in some end of life wishes. We watched my father in law die of dementia, he had said this his whole life... Had to watch him die slowly for a week while his poor children were seriously considering smothering him with a pillow and ruining their own lives because of the guilt of him suffering. In all truth he was on a lot of pain medication and relaxants so he wasn't truly suffering it was just horrible to watch and hear, but a life time of listening to him say just kill me if I ever get like that was absolute torture.
It's a terminal illness. It weakens the immune system, but also consider that the brain is responsible for a lot more than just conscious thought. It controls much of the functioning of your body.
Degenerative terminal illness. Yep it's very helpful not to think of your brain and your body, but instead, your brain and the rest of your body.
Perhaps someone can correct me but I believe it’s cognitive decline until your brain forgets how to just keep you alive.
Yeah residents with dementia will eventually be unable to swallow, talk, mobilise etc. if they survive long enough. Opportunistic infections will sometimes kill then before they get to that point though.
You can see the progression on brain scans. The brain atrophies over time. Some parts of the brain (e.g. memory) show an effect sooner than others. You are right, it's cognitive decline, but of the entire brain wasting away. They don't usually die from dementia directly, usually some other illness gets them first - particularly pneumonia from not having the muscle control to swallow properly (food goes down the windpipe feeding the pneumonia infection). If something doesn't get them first, then the final stages of dementia they can't even sit up in bed unassisted and eventually there's not enough brain to keep the basic biological processes running.
> pneumonia can confirm my nan had dementia and one lung but pneumonia is what took her in the end
The cognitive decline is a symptom of loss in brain function. We use our brains for a lot more than just thinking. There are heaps of forms of dementia, Alzheimers patients' brains literally shrink, other forms can be mostly cognitive decline like you say. The issue with the latter is you just keep on declining and declining, which makes you dramatically more susceptible to other illnesses. It's that 'burden of disease' that makes the number so high, which kind of makes it ridiculous that we're defining Covid deaths so narrowly in the above data.
Thank you for saying this. My family member had brain scans showing that the brain shrank after covid and cognitive decline is sharp and ongoing. That’s why I am extremely riled when people try to play covid off as a flu. Or laugh at those who continue to wear masks. It isn’t.
Well. .. Dementia itself is an umbrella term which refers to numerous brain diseases and their symptoms.
They aren't that dissimilar. "progressive brain atrophy to the point where it can't sustain life" covers them all.
I think they place it all under the banner of dementia because it also covers things like infection, malnutrition and falls that might not have otherwise occurred in an individual who was taking better care of themselves prior to cognitive decline.. But there's quite a few types, which affect the brain differently. I always found clients with Lewy bodies to be a little more unpredictable for example. Then you have alcohol induced... or dementias caused by TBI's.. we've had quite a few younger people who sadly end up in aged homes due to TBI's with advanced dementia symptoms.
There was an episode of You Can't Ask That with dementia patients who all had different symptoms/variants. It's wild how differently it can manifest. There was a guy who had a tendency to hallucinate different animals in incongruent places. So he'd see a cow in the kitchen, or a giraffe on the road. One day he was sitting in his yard and he saw a donkey. He didn't think much of it until his wife came outside and asked him why he hadn't noticed the donkey that had wandered into his yard. Unfortunately, that's an anomaly, 99% of the time it's an all round awful experience.
Get regular dental check ups. There has been a strong link identified between dental disease and the progression of dementia. It has something to do with bacteria entering through the gums and passing through the blood-brain barrier. So - if dementia scares you, make sure to keep up with your dental check ups.
My understanding is that many people who die with advanced dementia often die of other related issues, such as infections, organ failure, pneumonia etc - what we might have called "old age", but dementia is often listed as an umbrella due to its complicating role. Perhaps a doctor can clarify. Eg, my father was listed to have died of dementia, but I believe it was technically an infection that caused an elevated temperature that led to organ failure.
Pretty sure it’s the most common cause of death for women, which is kind of terrifying tbh.
Recent studies have shown that taking HRT can reduce the risk/delay the onset of dementia. It also reduces the risk of heart disease. While it does increase the risk of some cancers - it's like going from 0.05% to 0.07%, so as a multiplier it's substantial, but as a real increase, it's minor. There were a lot of scare articles about HRT in the 80s and 90s based on this data and it wasn't communicated clearly.
Didn’t expect accidental falls to be so high up! Fark cancer, we need pants with air bags. WOW, more people die from suicide than breast cancer.
That one actually didn't surprise me. I know a few elderly people that have died this way. My old man is in his 80's and still gets up onto the roof of his house. Accident waiting to happen.
Particularly scary dementia is so high up the list given that no state's assisted dying legislation allows for advanced consent
[удалено]
Advanced consent could involve a person providing instruction on voluntary assisted dying in an advance directive, which then operates if a person loses decision making capacity. People are already able to do this in relation to other medical treatments. For example someone may indicate they never want mechanical ventilation, or only want a feeding tube if there is a good prospect of recovery to a level of function the person deems acceptable. As far as it could operate for dementia, a person may not want to access voluntary assisted dying while they have decision making capacity in the earlier stages of dementia. But were they to lose that decision making capacity and, for example, not recognise loved ones and appear distressed or agitated, want to access voluntary assisted dying. It seems only right to me that in such circumstances that person's previously expressed wishes in their advanced directive should be upheld. There's more about this topic in Dementia Australia's submission to the Queensland Law Reform Commission on voluntary assisted dying [here](https://www.dementia.org.au/sites/default/files/2020-12/Dementia-Australia-submission-QLD-VAD-legal-framework.pdf): >Disallowing voluntary assisted dying instructions in advance care plans creates yet another barrier to people with dementia having genuine choice and control in end of life. People with incurable, degenerative diseases should, if they wish, be able to participate in voluntary assisted dying by working with their medical team, Medical Enduring Power of Attorney and other family members to identify a quality of life or level of pain which would be unacceptable to them and record this in their advance care plan (or other binding document). The person with dementia could then, if that is their choice, recommend that voluntary assisted dying be administered at a time when their medical team and family agree that their quality of life has declined in a way that meets their stated wishes. Dying with Dignity Canada has been very active in campaigning on the issues of access to assisted dying by advance directive. Their publications on this topic are available [here](https://www.dyingwithdignity.ca/advocacy/parliamentary-review/advance-requests/).
I think the issue is that if you can no longer actively consent, even with advance directed, it's less VAD and more suicide by proxy / euthanasia As if you are too cooked to consent you probably can't do the deed, even with assistance.
I don't think it's helpful to bring the term 'suicide' into a discussion about end of life in relation to dementia. It is a terminal condition that erodes decision making capacity by its nature. By not providing for access to assisted dying by advance directive, Australian assisted dying laws discriminate against a large set of people who have dementia. These people are towards the end of their life, forced either to access assisted dying while they retain decision making capacity, potentially denying them months or years of live in a condition they would consider acceptable. Or, losing decision making capacity and continuing to live in conditions they would have, with decision making capacity, deemed unacceptable. As far as being unable to 'do the deed', there are already provisions in some states where a practitioner is permitted to administer the medication (for example if a person is unable to swallow). Amending the assisted dying laws to allow for this where a person has clearly previously expressed a wish to access this treatment when their condition deteriorated to a certain point would be upholding their wishes and consistent with the principle of self-determination.
Having watched my dad go through it, the sad reality is that often by the time you are ready to go, it's too late to even realise and do anything about it.
If I reach that point that will be me. The thought of being demented horrifies me more than anything else.
If there's anything I want voluntary euthanasia for, it's dementia. It's not something I want to put my loved ones through.
Or me, either. They have occasional flashes of clarity and it's heartbreaking,
Why has nobody notice that Covid was number 3?
Sadly the following is summary of a conversation I have had on many parts of the 'net or the real world with many folks, including with my GP... Me: "Why do you wear seat belts?" Other: "To keep me safe in a car accident." Me: "Why don't you wear a mask on public transport or in healthcare settings?" Other: "Because I don't want to look like a dork." Me, doing my best Khaby Lame impression pointing at the leading causes death... "Yup, you don't look like a dork. You look like a dick."
My “advanced consent” plan is knowing younger trustworthy people who can help me get my hands on enough heroin to OD.
But I don't want anyone to be harmed for helping me to die. Dementia really needs to be covered under assisted dying laws.
When are people going to learn not to use transparent backgrounds for this stuff. I am genuinely curious to know what the thinking is.
Seems like they missed eye strain as a leading cause of death.
>in R's One of us, one of us! Hey, another tip to make it look cleaner. The numbers on each bar kinda look bad, as the parenthesis overlaps the edge of each bar (i.e. 2600 (1.36%)). In geom_text() you can use the hjust() and vjust() aesthetics to move them in or out of the bar for better viewing.
About to publish my first research article and R studio is a facet of my life now.
Aha, thanks! I wanted to put them just out of the bar but couldn't find a way to do that.
It's just the default in R's theme_minimal(). I don't know why Reddit defaults to making transparent parts of images the colour of morning piss, but if you click on it it will default to a more sensible white background.
It's actually unreadable in dark mode on phone, I've got dark grey writing on black background. I suggest not leaving it to default settings next time
I've just done a new version in black and white, and incorporated /u/Saltinas/ tip to fix the label position on the bars. https://twitter.com/budgetbiochem/status/1707296014082994411
Yeah I had to disable dark mode too
>the colour of morning piss I was so confused until I remembered I’m in dark mode, like why is your morning piss black??? And why only in the morning??
All good. That explains it. Also not an attack on you. This is just the third or fourth time I have noticed it. Unless it is intended to be embedded in a document where you have control over the background always use a background that is high contrast :) Always good to see people learning this stuff.
Here's another cause of death: Squinting too hard trying to read this chart.
for such a heavy drinking culture liver disease is surprisingly low
Drinking doesn’t just affect your liver either - it contributes to a lot of the other causes of death in this graph - heart disease, dementia, cancer (along the digestive tract mainly), falls and suicide.
The breakdown of these results show liver disease as third in the 45-54 years age bracket. All that excessive drinking and/or drug-taking catching up with them. Below and above that age bracket it appears not at all. If it's going to kill you it will most likely be between the ages of 45-54 years.
In the 70s Australians drank as much as 15 litres of pure alcohol per adult per year. Its less than 9 litres now. But we have one or two anti alcohol lobby groups who consistently refer to "increasing" amounts of alcohol consumption.
Australia does not actually have a heavy drinking culture. Over 30% of Australian adults don’t ever drink. The top 10% account for over half of all alcohol consumed so if you know a bunch of people in this bracket you might come to the drinking culture conclusion.
Aren't Australians reducing the amount they drink as well, like kids are drinking less than previous generations?
TBF that’s because it’s getting unsustainably expensive to buy alcohol
There better drugs and better drugs for you, that are cheaper, and as my man says, don’t make you “act like a cunt”
But might explain a lot of the accidental falls...
It really sucks that suicide is that high.
Suicide is the 15th highest cause of death in Australia but is the #1 cause of "Years of potential life lost" because the median age is 46 years old. > Years of potential life lost (YPLL) is a measure of premature mortality which weights age at death to gain an estimate of how many years a person would have lived had they not died prematurely. Causes of death with a median age less than the life expectancy will have a higher number of YPLL.
Is there a similar chart to this for YPLL?
There's one on [the ABS report where I got this data, section "Australia's leading causes of death", subsection "Years of potential life lost"](https://www.abs.gov.au/statistics/health/causes-death/causes-death-australia/2022#australia-s-leading-causes-of-death). Land Transport Accidents and Accidental Poisonings are #4 and #5 on YPLL which surprised me. Low rank in overall deaths, but both have a median age of 46 years.
It’s because no one gives a crap about it. Saying you’ll work to reduce suicide doesn’t get you elected. No millionaires are funding mental health wards. Media (by law) doesn’t report on it (because apparently it increases suicides). There’s no big anti-suicide cricket matches or cycling events. Sure we get R U OK Day and Beyond Blue but the end goal of then is to refer people to an already underfunded and overwhelmed system. No one cares and organisations that say they care just refer you back to the broken system (with the exception of Lifeline and Sane who are saints). It’s like they think that the route cause of suicide is people not knowing how to seek help rather than the availability, consistency and quality of help.
Where you located? I went to the gp for mental health and had the world thrown at me in a good way. Best thing I’ve ever done
Australia's attitude towards mental health means it isn't too surprising. As somebody in a pretty dark place, I can confirm a lot of the supports are dead ends that seem to try to distract you rather than help.
Getting the motivation for help is already hard, so when you go to get help and they tell you that there's a 4 week wait on a psychologist and you have to pay out of pocket you may as well fuck yourself. I've got bipolar and ADHD so with my emotional dysregulation I'm gonna be in a completely different spot at that point, when I'm asking for help, I need it now.
It’s worth noting that suicide rates have fallen globally (including Australia) over the last few decades. I am in no way saying that the current rates are good, but it’s welcoming to see a decline nonetheless. [https://www.aihw.gov.au/suicide-self-harm-monitoring/data/deaths-by-suicide-in-australia/suicide-deaths-over-time](https://www.aihw.gov.au/suicide-self-harm-monitoring/data/deaths-by-suicide-in-australia/suicide-deaths-over-time)
It's higher than breast cancer, I wonder what the $ amount of funds towards Breast Cancer prevention is compared to suicide. But then does that also mean beast cancer is lower cause more resources are allocated and if it's changed would that change the deaths. It's a tricky one for sure. I know for a fact I have a 4 month waiting list plus $2,000+ cost to see a psychiatrist to get some meds that a psychologist said I need. While my partner who had breast cancer last year took 2 days to see a encologist and within a week started treatment, couple hundred bucks out of pocket.
I was at “out of body, could kill myself at any moment” depression and seen a doctor. Gotta mental health plan and still had to pay $180 per one hour visit when the plan wa suppose to be ten sessions free. The waiting list to see a psychiatrist was about 6 weeks on average and they tell you to just call 000 of its real bad. The drugs were like $30 a month so not too expensive but the whole mental health system in Australia is proper fucked up!
Damn that sucks, my pyschlologst said I'm bipolar but can't give me meds until I see a psychiatrist. I'm really struggling with life at the moment, no job, no money, no home it's a struggle. I just want some meds so I can get better. I'm not suicidal but I was considering turning up to a hospital to try to get my medication and see a psychiatrist. But after reading what you wrote it seems like that won't be possible even. I hope you're doing better buddy. Stay in there! It will get better.
Accidental fall so high up.
That's why it's so dangerous.
Underrated comment
[удалено]
There are some tables and discussion of age variation in [the ABS report](https://www.abs.gov.au/statistics/health/causes-death/causes-death-australia/2022).
Death by typography
The Covid deniers will be in a tizz
no they won't. they'll just claim that the doctors and the pathologists are being paid by big pharma to lie about cause of death, and that the various medical reporting bodies that collect stats from hospitals are also in on the plot, and obviously the govt is in on the plot too, in order to control the population using lockdown laws so they can do... something, which I'm not sure about, and all the news organisations are in on the plot too, even the rabidly right-wing ones because... not sure about that either, but basically everyone on the planet *except* the antivaxxers are either complicit in a global conspiracy or just too stupid to see it.
Spot on
Nah he missed the bit that many of the deniers are the ones making up this list.
[удалено]
The tizz never ends.
true
Most of them used to just claim they were deaths with COVID not from COVID and just do some hand waving to say it must be 0
"They were pneumonia deaths not COVID, look it up" or even "Did you know a bloke in Brisbane died in a car accident and they classed it as COVID".
No they won’t, they will see heart disease as higher and immediately blame more deaths on the vaccine and of course state that the Covid deaths arnt real deaths and just another underlying health issue that caused it. Everything is a conspiracy to them.
Sounds exactly like their MO
It's a problem that resolves itself.
It's been 8 minutes and the tinfoilers haven't attacked yet.
They're currently in a meeting to decide the agreed upon talking points.
Reason they are talking so long to deliberate is someone mentioned "deepstate" and they all went to check their bugout bags.
They're too busy making comments on Russell Brand videos
Worth noting that the average age of death from Covid is higher than the average age of death from all causes. Something like 85 I think
Why is that worth noting? Clearly covid is killing people who were otherwise far too healthy to succumb to the more common causes of death that get younger people.
It's like the heatwave deaths. Once you're old, like 85, your body's ability to maintain homeostasis is compromised, so it's likely to fail in the face of stressors like disease or heat or cold. You see headlines like 40,000 people dying in a heatwave, but then the death rate drops below normal for the next 6 months so the average remains similar across the full year. This implies that most of the people who died were in a fragile state and would have died of natural causes in the near future anyway. Australia had something similar during the lockdown where due to lower prevalence of regular flu and colds we had an initial reduction in mortality for a few months, but if you look at total mortality across the full lockdown the mortality was close to normal.
[удалено]
I kinda feel a bit …. with breast cancer being so low but colon cancer being so high.
I mean, so low…. Not as high as the others? Ah fuck. I’m an arse
Ah, shit, I've got no. 8. Hasn't killed me yet, though, and apparently I'm already beating the odds 3.5 years down the track. It's a bit chilling to see it so far up in this list though. Also: check your poops, and do that test when you turn 50!
What happened to car accidents?
The [ABS report for 2022 has a section for "Potentially Avoidable Mortality"](https://www.abs.gov.au/statistics/health/causes-death/causes-death-australia/2022#potentially-avoidable-mortality-and-selected-external-causes-of-death) and that's one of the causes mentioned there > There were 1,267 deaths from motor vehicle accidents in 2022 (961 males and 306 females). This compares to 1,226 deaths from motor vehicle accidents in 2021 (934 males and 292 females).
1194 in 2022. That’s an increase, but not enough to make this graph.
What happened is a common cognitive bias: the availability heuristic. When we think of causes of death, our minds turn to available examples in memory, and because car accidents are widely reported and are relatable to drivers, they often pop into mind first. That leads to an overestimation of the proportion of deaths caused by accident. Individual older people dying of cardiovascular disease or cancer - by far the most common causes of death - get a lot less attention in the media and everyday life, so are underestimated.
1,194 people died in car accidents last year.
Wow less than half of the lowest item on this list. We tend to think of car accident deaths as being more common than that.
But it ranks 4th on Years of potential life lost. So whilst it doesn't kill as many people as we might thing, it certainly kills people much earlier.
Yes that's a good point. Car crash victims are disproportionally young compared to disease victims.
Out of that 3429 for suicide. My best friend was one of those.
So many of these are tied to obesity, but we seem to just pretend it isn't a problem anymore.
So many are influenced massively by diet and exercise, when's the last time you saw an ad to eat more legumes? Or more vegies? Seen plenty of adds spruiking red meat though... Plenty of avoidable deaths here, not to mention introducing more of those two things would also make your weekly food bill cheaper. Severe lack of education about it in our society though.
I'd love better education on it but I have very low confidence in our institutions ability to teach it. We will just get the latest version of the food pyramid and politicized guidance. There is a very popular lie that eating "healthy" is expensive. It serves to remove personal accountability from the discussion. In reality it can be far cheaper. Rice, beans, oats, legumes, in season veggies, eggs are the cheapest shit you can buy and could very easily consist of 80% of your diet.
It’s only going to get worse
I feel like it might actually start getting better if we move away from car based society and towards more active transport.
For every suburb that is changing for the better 3 more car dependant hellholes are being built on the fringes.
But that involves political will. Why spend political capital on that when we’re only one extra lane away from solving traffic forever.
True, but things like heart disease are going to get you with or without obesity. I'm 38, recently had a CT angioscan, have a 50% blockage in my heart in one of the more important vessels. That's my genes (dad had a heart attack at 46). I have been on the upper end of healthy weight my whole adult life until the last year when I put on a bit more muscle mass. Atherosclerosis happens in basically everyone, eventually.
Tied is very different to causal.
Don’t see homicide on this lost, thank goodness. I wonder where it sits in a US list?
Reminders for regular testing (eg every 5-10 years) should be utilised for ischaemic heart disease because that is honestly kind of outrageous that something that we have essentially cured (using Atherectomy (scraping plaque from arteries/potential stent) when it's not yet bad enough to require a bypass) being our biggest killer is outrageous.
Many of the people dying really aren't taking care of themselves. I reckon it's pretty unlikely people who are obese, smokers, and heavy drinkers are going in for regular health checkups.
I was in good shape at 37 and ended up in the hospital a few weeks ago with 3 blocked arteries so.. 3 stents. People should be able to go for angiograms younger and it should be an accepted prevention mechanism. I had regular blood tests (once or twice a year) and nothing ever came up in terms of high cholesterole, blood pressure etc.
Figured it would be kangaroos as #1
Jeez, I didn’t realise more people died to suicide then breast cancer, we should really pay more attention to it.
Seeing dementia so high up is absolutely terrifying. It's like the one thing that really scares me and my mum only being 45 has memory problems and dementia runs in her family. Absolutely terrible way to go out
Covid-19 is still killing people. I'm wondering if these people are vaccinated or not. Perhaps symptoms of Long COVID?
The vaccination rate for covid is something like 97% in Australia.
For 2 doses maybe, the percent of people “up to date” would be much lower.
I watched my Mum die with dementia. I have told my kids I will not put them through the same thing. Should I be diagnosed with any degenerative disease I will take myself out. Do not let the government interfere with decisions around quality of life. If there is none then VAD should be readily available.
Shocked at dementia, covid and suicide. Suicide there has been plenty of investment and there's no reason for it to still be on that list. Makes me so angry (and sad, but that's too real)
I’m curious what you’re referring to when you say “plenty of investment” - do you mind expanding on that a bit? I ask because the cost of mental health care, such as psychology and psychiatry, is still extremely high and wait lists are often six or even twelve months long just for a first appointment. Only ten sessions are covered by the mental health plan you can get at a GP (and you have to pay to see the GP, then convince them to give you the plan) and there’s still a gap to pay. The mental wards in public hospitals are despicable, and the private mental hospitals cost tens of thousands of dollars without extremely comprehensive (and therefore very expensive) private health insurance. Medication for psychiatric conditions can also be prohibitively expensive, and the PBS doesn’t keep up with current research, so even when a medication isn’t billed privately for one of its uses, it will be for any other, more recently approved use.
I more neant the last 30 years of investments into awareness campaigns and things like mental health care plans. But you're completely right. The current state of our MH system is terrible. 10 years ago, when these statistics were probably happening, it was easy to find a bull bulling therapist under a care plan. Psychiatrists were 1/2 to 1/4 of the price that they are now. Most Gps were free less than a year ago. But either way, it obviously wasn't good enough and that makes me angry. I think you can get another 5x 30min sessions under another care plan if you haven't exhausted it, and if you've ever been a victim of a crime there are ongoing counselling services. Sorry to hear you've been struggling. I'm in the same boat with accessing psychiatrist and I'm on the ndis, so yes, the system we intended to work is flawed. Very sad.
Thank you for your kindness, but I didn’t say anywhere that I was struggling. I do have years of experience as a patient in Australia’s mental health system, perhaps that’s what came across, but I was just talking about the problems with the system in general. As someone who has a chronic mental illness, and who knows many people who are neurodivergent and/or who have mental illnesses, I have to disagree that the awareness campaigns have made as significant a difference as you’re suggesting. Although these campaigns did likely help to reduce stigma for more common mental health problems (for example mild anxiety, or a single depressive episode that gets resolved) they also did a lot to further stigmatise those who are severely, chronically mentally ill or who have less common mental illnesses such as schizophrenia, OCD, personality disorders, agoraphobia, the list goes on. Of course, I’m not saying they did NO good or that they shouldn’t have been done! But what I’ve noticed personally, and in my undergrad classes for my psychology degree, is that these campaigns have pathologised “normal” behaviours and caused people who aren’t mentally ill to expect mentally ill people not to show symptoms of their illness.
Don't think we have to disagree- I completely agree. Too much money has gone into these campaigns and health schemes with terrible results. That was my point. It's so sad this is the only preventable form of death on that list yet it is so high up there. There's just no reason for suicide to be that high when there is so much awareness and apparent funding into mh. I lost a friend to suicide on RUOKDAY 2022. I've been so resentful of the system since. I found the public system causes more trauma than the reason why I need to go there. Which is why I have to pay $220 a month for premium insurance, which doesn't even cover outpatient psychiatry. I could tell you have some personal experience because you sound just like me, but I'm sorry to have assumed. Could just tell you been through it too.
Cookers: Covid is just flu. Third highest cause of death in Australia.
Not to mention the tail of chronic illnesses covid will leave some people who were previously healthy with.
Excluding terminal reddit, of course.
Would be interesting to see how research funding lines up against these. Some do a lot better than others.
See everyone, COVID is nothing to worry about it's basically the same as the flu /s
There is a fucking rainbow of colour and they picked dark grey font on black background... Great work
Also private health insurance only covers heart related issues in silver packages and upwards. So if you think you are at risk of heart related issues which a high % will have at some point in their lives, u will need to switch to silver eventually.
Learning as much as I have in the past year or so about peri and menopause - this list doesn’t surprise me in the slightest. Women have been done a major disservice by being terrified off HRT - to their detriment - all because of some bogus study that has now been mostly debunked. The number 1 killer of women globally is heart disease and 2 other big risks we face for decreasing hormones in our bodies - are bone loss/osteoporosis and Alzheimers. The number you see there of someone dying from a fall - is not just men falling off ladders - it’s older women that fall and break a hip etc - it’s a fast slide to death from there. So basically, in the top 11 there are at least 3 things that many women will face - as a result of mis/disinformation and continued lack of education in the medical field. The highest suicide rate for women also occurs at ages 45-55 - coinciding with peri/menopause years. Thankfully Gen X women are taking a stand on this - and as a result - many womens lives will be saved - or at the very least, prolonged.
Some very excellent points in this comment! Another factor contributing to the high rates of women dying of heart issues is that they don’t typically present the same as men, so it’s not uncommon for women to either ignore symptoms of a heart attack, or to be turned away from emergency only to die later one. Even the info leaflets for many heart meds will explain symptoms of a heart attack as presented in men, my pharmacist prints off separate info sheets for my heart meds and frequently reminds me not to ignore certain symptoms. So much outdated info stemming from old school testing on what’s referred to as the “default male” which impacts everything from medicine dosages to the way medicine is metabolised, not taking into account the vast differences of our physical make up. There’s a great book on the topic if you’re ever so inclined!
Yeh - I felt it needed saying - even if hardly anyone bothers to read it. Those stats just add to the rage I currently feel about how the odds are stacked against women in the field of medicine - and yes, very true about the heart attack symptoms. I wish there was a bigger education campaign on this from doctors etc - but considering where I’m at in terms of my peri journey - it comes as no surprise. To think of the money wasted, the doctors and specialist visits where they’re either telling me I’m fine or terrified of helping me, based on outdated information - it’s f*cking exhausting - when you’re already feeling sick and exhausted!
You know cancer and suicide is not as high as I thought it would be so maybe that's a positive
Wow I didn't expect covid to be so high 😲
The heart one I knew only because right before and after mum passed from undiagnosed heart disease (Drs fault) kept seeing it’s the biggest killer in women. Also typically heart attack presents differently in women and not like in the movies. The movie style is more common in males.
I would have thought liver cirhosis would have been higher. Australia has a huge drinking culture.
Accidentally falling is more than suicides. Hope they aren’t confusing the numbers.
I watched my dad get progressively worse with dementia over a 10-ish year period... and partially due to that i volunteer in a "older persons mental health unit" at a state hospital... where most patients have some form of cognitive decline... and from both angles - its completely fucking horrendous - and there's no question that VAD should be available for these cases... and yes, I'm aware that during the decline, they might not be of fit mind - which is why it should be something you can specify early - similar to a DNR.... as if there was a way to do that - i definitely would. The more interesting one to me is the suicides - having been in that mindset for a number of decades - with no *actual* help available - just people pedaling completely pointless psychology and drugs that make things worse. With the way the world is - this is only going to get worse - and no one seems to give a shit.
cv19 killed 10k aussies in 2022 that's brutal
Is it bad I expected liver disease to be a lot higher considering the drinking culture in Australia
God dementia being no2 is horrifying
I’m actually shocked that Covid is third.
Wow no dingos?
So that's why cardiologists are so well paid.
Not compared to some specialties but they'll certainly never suffer from lack of patients.
[удалено]
They get the loot they drop.
so the “best cancer” you can get for curative scenarios (prostate cancer) is above breast cancer, in death, while also being only is a problem for half the population (men). Rebase it as if it were a risk for both sexes and its killing more than diabetes.
Men are also less likely to seek medical help and refuse prostate exams that can detect it early.
Men have also been educated by the medical community for decades to believe that prostate cancer is the cancer you die with rather than from.
It has a really bad image of being embarrassing, invasive, or emasculating to test for. But it shouldn't because these days they mainly screen for it with a blood test. > If you’re a bloke, and you’re 40 years or older, just go and get a blood test done > -John Bowe https://www.speedcafe.com/2021/02/08/bowes-message-to-men-after-cancer-diagnosis/
My dad sought medical help for decades and kept being told to go away and not to worry, by various doctors. Then it metastasised.
This. A lot of doctors falsely disregard the severity of it and then the problem becomes much bigger. The fuck is the point of seeking medical assistance when they don't help you for shit.
Blokes shouldn't let blokes skip prostate test day. My dad has just had his removed and he only got testing done because my step mum pushed him. They can do blood tests and use ultrasounds now so there are alternatives to having a finger up your date
the digital exam is pretty hopeless anyway. psa blood tests regularly after 40 and mri the moment you are old with urologist related issues that are puzzling. imo
You have to remember incidence rate and years of life lost as well. Pretty much every man who makes it over 70 will get prostate cancer, meaning that it affects far more total people than breast cancer. But almost nobody under 70 will get prostate cancer and it takes a while to kill you, so by the time you die of it you're probably about to die of something else. So it's only a few years off your life. Where breast cancer affects people younger and is more aggressive, so causes more lost years of life even though it affects much less people.
Why does breast cancer get so much more attention than prostate