A national survey of memory clinics in Australia

Background: There is limited information describing memory clinics at a national level in Australia. The aim of this study was to gather information about the resourcing, practices and clinical diagnoses of Australian memory clinics. Methods: A postal survey was sent to all Australian memory clinics identified by key specialists working in dementia assessment services. Results: Of 23 surveys sent out, 14 were returned. Most clinics are located in Victoria where they receive Victorian state funding. The average clinic has 1.67 effective full time clinical staff including 0.42 medical staff, 0.24 allied health staff, 0.53 clinical nursing staff and 0.48 psychologists. Clinics are open on average twice a week and each half-day clinic has two new and three review patients, seeing new patients twice initially then once more over 12 months. Patients wait 10 weeks for initial assessment with 59% referred by general practitioners. The Mini-mental State Examination and clock drawing are utilized universally. The most common diagnoses are Alzheimer's disease (37.8%) and mild cognitive impairment (19.8%) but 6.9% of patients have no cognitive impairment. Conclusions: This survey has provided useful benchmarking data on Australian memory clinics which can also be used by other countries for comparative analyses.