Like his seven surviving siblings, 76-year-old Claude Timbery is sharp and enjoying life with no sign of dementia. Other than a "pair of dicky knees", he has few health problems and enjoys the weekly "yarn up" at the local Aboriginal community centre.

But Mr Timbery's in-laws weren't as fortunate. Far too many have developed dementia including Alzheimer's. His daughter Alison Timbery said she had a cousin whose mother developed dementia who had been part of the stolen generations: "[My aunt] didn't show any love to them."

New research has found that Indigenous people with high rates of childhood trauma, including those who were forcibly removed from their families such as Alison's aunt, are nearly three times more likely to develop dementia, especially Alzheimer's disease, than others.

Dementia expert Kylie Radford, who led the research published in the American Association for Geriatric Psychiatry, says she hopes the study could go some way to explaining why the rate of dementia in Australia's Indigenous population is three to four times greater than the broader community, and often occurs earlier in life. This rate of dementia is higher than observed in any other population in the world.