Austria has a long history of migration, characterized by phases of emigration of smaller population groups, but mainly by immigration and transit migration¹ due armed conflicts, bilateral labor recruitment agreements, and the EU accession^1,2,3. Immigration to Austria reached its peak during the wave of large-scale migration of refugees in 2015³. The migrant population (born abroad, 793,200 to 1.8 million) and its proportion in the total population (10.3 to 19.9%) roughly doubled between 1990 and 2019⁴.

There are 229,400 people with a migration background aged 65 or older. Of those, approx. 15,800 are estimated to exhibit some form of dementia. Calculations show the most affected migrant groups presumably originate from Germany (approx. 3,300), Serbia (approx. 2,000), Bosnia and Herzegovina (approx. 1,400), the Czech Republic (approx. 1,400), and Turkey (approx. 1,000)⁵.

The ‘Austrian Dementia Report 2014’ from 2015, has a separate chapter on ‘migrants with dementia’. It comprises four pages and points to the problems of a later diagnosis and the lower utilization of care services⁶. The ‘Dementia Strategy - Living Well with Dementia’, by the Bundesministerium für Arbeit Soziales Gesundheit und Konsumentenschutz, from 2015 contains seven impact goals and 21 recommendations for action. However, none of those goals and recommendations directly relate to migration. In only two passages, access to support services is demanded and multilingual information events are recommended⁷. The ‘Medical guideline for the integrated care of dementia patients’ from 2011 briefly touches migration in two sentences in one chapter without explicitly addressing it. It is pointed out that neuropsychological tests must consider the socio-cultural background and language skills of a person⁸. The report ‘Non-drug prevention and therapy for mild and moderate Alzheimer's dementia and mixed dementia’ was published in 2015, but it does not refer to migration on 241 pages⁹.

Sufficient multilingual information material on dementia is available and there are institutions, which provide multilingual counseling, support, and mediation services for migrants. Nevertheless  there are only a few specialised services for migrants with dementia. Currently, there are no nationwide interpreting services in Austria. However, there are nationwide standards for inpatient care regarding the consideration of religion-based food needs, culture-specific needs during family visits, and language needs.

Specific courses on culturally sensitive care and professional training and further education opportunities in intercultural care for doctors and nursing staff exist but these are only optional courses. The proportion of migrants (in inpatient and outpatient care) among caregivers is at least 14 to 15%. Overall, the need for culturally sensitive care is not met by sufficiently qualified professionals.

Family caregivers of migrants with dementia receive the same specific information material (in the respective mother tongue) as non-migrant family caregivers. There is also no significant difference in the provision of other support services. Still, the need for specialized services and information for this population is very high and very diverse.