Dementia strikes like thief in the night

Apopular belief is our bodies are programmed to last 60 years, but these days it’s more like 100. I had a stack of great aunts and uncles who seemed to peter out far too early, but when I checked, they lasted well beyond 80.

My Grandfather Antin Dickie was one of 14 children; the longest lived until she was 89 and he checked out earlier at 66, but not before telling my mother I “looked good in the saddle,” he was a horse trainer, and I am a lousy rider!

His wife, my beautiful Grandmother, was one of eight – they all lived long lives, departing in their late 80s.

On the Johnson side not much is known, but they certainly weren’t Catholics because their numbers were few!

What is of interest to me is they all, to use their own words, “had their wits about them,” compared to today when, sadly, many of our dear old and not so old, loved ones are suffering from dementia.

Worldwide, approximately twice the population of Australia has dementia – Alzheimer’s disease is the most common form of dementia contributing 65% of all cases.

In recent years three of my close family members were diagnosed with dementia, two in their eighties and another in her very early seventies.

When you first happen upon this dreaded affliction you tend to get frustrated with the repetitious questioning.

In another case I started receiving late night telephone calls from an aunt, 500 kilometres away, inquiring as to where her husband, my uncle, was when, in fact, he was with her in the same room.

Along with my youngest brother Mark, we visited her and introduced ourselves as “your favourite nephew and second favourite nephew” to which she replied “I don’t know who you are,” and then out of the blue she exclaimed “where’s Gazza,” our other brother, Garry!

I may get dementia, I don’t know, but I regularly challenge myself by trying to remember the impossible.

Earlier this year I was trying to remember the name of a young lady who came up to me in 1965 and gave me a mohair cardigan she’d knitted – years later I backed a horse whose name had something to with the gesture.

It took me three months to finally recall the horse’s name, Yeoman’s Service, and her name, Denise Yeomans.

Seventy per cent of dementia cases are female – how sad and how cruel.

There is no cure for dementia but remaining physically active and being involved in activities and social interactions that stimulate the brain is helpful.

And, on the horizon, are advances in research which may one day introduce a therapeutic breakthrough.