Speaker 1: From The Australian. Here's what's on the front. I'm Claire Harvey.
Speaker 1: It's Friday, November twenty nine. Dementia is on track to
Speaker 1: become Australia's leading cause of death, overtaking cancer, and there
Speaker 1: are steps you can take now to reduce your risk.
Speaker 1: One of them is drinking less, because alcohol related dementia,
Speaker 1: including in young people, is a real risk today. The
Speaker 1: inspiring love story of one couple who faced a diagnosis
Speaker 1: that was hard to comprehend late summer at Bondi, the
Speaker 1: perfect place to fall in love. Louise Bryant was a
Speaker 1: media executive in her thirties, a volunteer life saver who'd
Speaker 1: spent the season on patrol keeping the kids and the
Speaker 1: backpackers safe at the world's most faith beach. Her patrol
Speaker 1: captain invited the crew to the clubhouse at the beach's
Speaker 1: south end Icebergs. There's a famous aquamarine ocean pool, and
Speaker 1: it was their end of season celebration. And then someone
Speaker 1: walked in who would change Louise's life. The tall, handsome,
Speaker 1: drop dead charming Craig Moore. He was an advertising copywriter,
Speaker 1: a charming wordsmith and a huge personality. His nickname was Moose.
Speaker 1: Everyone at the table seemed to know Moose, but his
Speaker 1: attention settled on Loo, and before she knew it, she
Speaker 1: was swept up in a whirl of dinners and dates.
Speaker 2: I guess you could say we instantly fell in love.
Speaker 2: He's very very charismatic, a bit of a bon vivant
Speaker 2: sort of character. He's incredibly witty and very funny, and
Speaker 2: he just had a real mac with being able to
Speaker 2: solve a kind of client problem, I guess in a
Speaker 2: creative advertising setting. But he was also an avid letter
Speaker 2: writer to The Citny Morning in particular, and he wrote
Speaker 2: some very funny letters that were published every other week.
Speaker 2: You'd often write me bitiful cards and letters, which I've
Speaker 2: of course still kept. But yeah, very special.
Speaker 1: And over the years you started to notice some changes
Speaker 1: in his behavior. Looking back now, what was the first
Speaker 1: thing that made you aware that something was different?
Speaker 2: Look, I think it was a lot of just unusual
Speaker 2: sort of behavior that I couldn't quite put my finger on.
Speaker 2: He seemed to genuinely love me. He was very caring
Speaker 2: and kind. He was very supportive, but in the next breath,
Speaker 2: he wouldn't turn up to things. He would become a
Speaker 2: little bit erratic. Some of his friends would often say
Speaker 2: things to me that were concerning, and yeah, I think
Speaker 2: there were many moments where I look back and think, oh, okay,
Speaker 2: that makes sense. Now, that makes sense.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you describe in a story that we're publishing in
Speaker 1: The Australian today a moment where he was supposed to
Speaker 1: do a big ocean swim and he didn't finish with
Speaker 1: the rest of the swimmers. That must have sent you
Speaker 1: into a panic.
Speaker 2: Absolutely, I remember it so vividly. It was the Palm
Speaker 2: Beach to Well Beach swim. It was a sparkling day,
Speaker 2: the conditions were perfect. We'd made a weekend out of it.
Speaker 2: We'd stayed at friends the night before. I remember dropping
Speaker 2: him down to the marshaling area and I said to hear, Mom,
Speaker 2: meet you at the other end. And an hour later,
Speaker 2: he hadn't emerged from the water, and his friends and
Speaker 2: everyone in his age group had obviously arrived, and I
Speaker 2: started to sort of make some inquiries had anyone seen Moose?
Speaker 2: And eventually I looked down and I could see him
Speaker 2: wandering up the beach and he hadn't been in the water,
Speaker 2: And I think I was a bit shocked and taken
Speaker 2: aback by that, and I thought, that's really strange. And
Speaker 2: he then said, oh, my goalals broke, which in ocean
Speaker 2: swimming circles is a big like it's just the worst excuse.
Speaker 2: And I think a friend overheard and she's turned on
Speaker 2: the heel and said you're so full of shit boos,
Speaker 2: and it was yeah, it was a sort of troubled me.
Speaker 2: But we moved on from that point and I just thought, okay,
Speaker 2: he was able to atone about a year later, and
Speaker 2: he did eventually do and another ocean swim over at
Speaker 2: Manly and he loved it. But now, of course he's
Speaker 2: completely terrified of open water and he won't go anywhere
Speaker 2: near a Paul or indeed the ocean or the beach.
Speaker 2: He gets quite anxious.
Speaker 1: Something was in fact seriously wrong, but it was something
Speaker 1: lew and Craig couldn't have even imagined. At that point.
Speaker 1: They were in midlife, fit and active. Craig had a
Speaker 1: young onset dementia, alcohol induced dementia, something lou didn't even
Speaker 1: know was possible. In Australia, it's hard to find a
Speaker 1: man who hasn't at some point in their lives drunk
Speaker 1: a lot of alcohol, whether it's weekend partying or the steady,
Speaker 1: quiet chug of drinks after work with dinner, catching up
Speaker 1: with friends. The kind of always on consumption that seems
Speaker 1: okay day to day but can look quite confronting when
Speaker 1: you write down the number of sta and drinks in
Speaker 1: one of those forms at the GP. After Craig's diagnosis,
Speaker 1: he and Lou carried on with their life in beautiful BONDI,
Speaker 1: enjoying the good times, trying not to think too much
Speaker 1: about what the future might hold. He was in hospital
Speaker 1: recovering from an unrelated surgery, and he started talking to
Speaker 1: others about what was going on in your life? That
Speaker 1: wasn't quite right? What was he saying?
Speaker 2: Well, there was a moment where he was suffering this delirium,
Speaker 2: I suppose, but I remember at one point a lot
Speaker 2: of he had streams of visitors coming in and they
Speaker 2: had some incredible supporting that time, because we weren't really
Speaker 2: sure what was going on, and a friend, many friends
Speaker 2: would come in and he'd tell them, and he looked
Speaker 2: so serene and happy that we were having a baby,
Speaker 2: Melanie Moore, a baby girl, and he was very happy
Speaker 2: about that.
Speaker 1: So he named this baby that wasn't real And in
Speaker 1: that moment, do you remember how you felt about that?
Speaker 1: And that's the moment you can't really pretend that nothing
Speaker 1: is wrong.
Speaker 2: Yeah, look it was. Sometimes you need to look for
Speaker 2: the humor in the dark moments. I was literally running
Speaker 2: down the corridor of telling friends, look, please don't ring
Speaker 2: your wife to tell them this wonderful news, because it's
Speaker 2: actually not the case.
Speaker 1: While all this was going on, Luise was managing editor
Speaker 1: of The Australian, a huge job. She wasn't sharing much
Speaker 1: of what was going on in her personal life, but
Speaker 1: at the time we were making a podcast, Head Noise,
Speaker 1: all about degenerative brain conditions. In Head Noise, we followed
Speaker 1: a superstar, retired rugby league player James Graham, as he
Speaker 1: explored what years of football had done to his brain,
Speaker 1: and we heard his neurologist, doctor Rowena Mobbs, telling James
Speaker 1: his scans showed a reduction in volume of his brain
Speaker 1: that shouldn't be happening in someone so young. That podcast
Speaker 1: prompted Lou to go and see doctor Mobs with Craig
Speaker 1: because Lou wondered if head knocks Craig suffered while playing
Speaker 1: American football could have contributed to his condition. Eventually, doctor
Speaker 1: Mobs said Craig needed to go into full time care.
Speaker 1: Now he lives safe and happy in a group home
Speaker 1: where lou knows he's getting the care he needs.
Speaker 2: When you're talking about it dementia diagnosis, there's often no
Speaker 2: start and end. Rowena describes it like a rolling ball.
Speaker 2: I prefer to describe it like throwing a ball off
Speaker 2: a cliff, because you don't know where it's going to land.
Speaker 1: One of the factors lew and Craig we're dealing with
Speaker 1: was the shame associated with dementia. It's not easy for
Speaker 1: anyone to talk about the loss of dignity and privacy,
Speaker 1: the loss of independence and connection that any kind of
Speaker 1: dementia causes.
Speaker 2: I'd love to one day talk about dementia positivity, but
Speaker 2: there really isn't now because there's no cure, there's no
Speaker 2: happy story, there's no surgery, there's no magic pill at
Speaker 2: the moment, and it's something that I think we really
Speaker 2: need to start thinking about shifting our tension to dementia
Speaker 2: as as an important area that's becoming more and more urgent,
Speaker 2: particularly and I'm sure you're aware of the statistics but
Speaker 2: it will overtake cats as a leading cause of death
Speaker 2: next year in Australia, and cases are expected to triple
Speaker 2: by twenty fifty in the Western Asia region of which
Speaker 2: Australia is of course part of. So it's going to
Speaker 2: have a significant impact on us, and I think we
Speaker 2: need to start talking about various ways we can prevent
Speaker 2: or it will intervene.
Speaker 1: The world's pre eminent medical journal, The Lancet, has a
Speaker 1: standing commission on dementia Prevention, Intervention and care. It's twenty
Speaker 1: twenty four report talks about increasing and stronger evidence about
Speaker 1: the factors that can help reduce the risk. Those are
Speaker 1: things like improving education, preventing hearing laws, preventing high blood pressure,
Speaker 1: reducing smoking and obesity, and preventing excessive alcohol consumption. The
Speaker 1: Lancets reports suggests that means consuming fewer than two glasses
Speaker 1: of wine or beers a day to avoid increasing your
Speaker 1: risk of dementia. What do you wish you could say
Speaker 1: to yourself of ten years ago, We wish that you
Speaker 1: had known if awareness had been.
Speaker 2: Greater than Maybe it's just my experience, but I just
Speaker 2: wonder if when we go to the GP and we
Speaker 2: start if those issues are raised. Often that conversation leaves
Speaker 2: down the path of cancer risk, or heart risk or diabetes.
Speaker 2: But very rarely in those early stages is dementia thought of.
Speaker 2: And I think that's because a lot of people assume
Speaker 2: that dementia is an old person's disease, which of course
Speaker 2: it isn't.
Speaker 1: Also, when you're talking to your GP about modifiable behavior,
Speaker 1: the GP is saying you should really give up smoking,
Speaker 1: or maybe you should eat a bit less, try and
Speaker 1: lose a bit of way, or do more exercise. The
Speaker 1: reasons to do those things feel like they're a long
Speaker 1: way off, don't they. You could live longer if you
Speaker 1: eat better now that can feel quite intangible.
Speaker 2: Yeah, absolutely, And I think the more we can raise awareness,
Speaker 2: it is an urgent conversation, and I think we need
Speaker 2: to collectively think about, well, how we can adjust our thinking.
Speaker 2: I guess around the fact that dementia is a significant
Speaker 2: risk factor.
Speaker 1: After the break lose message to others who are touched
Speaker 1: by dementia. Luis's story is told in The Australian Today
Speaker 1: by one of the Australian's most gifted writers, Fiona Harari.
Speaker 1: You can read it right now at the Australian dot
Speaker 1: com au and we'll be back after this break. You
Speaker 1: and I have been friends for years, and you've been
Speaker 1: very supportive to me as I watched my mother go
Speaker 1: through the diagnosis of dementia, and you've listened patiently to me,
Speaker 1: talking about that a lot. You didn't talk much about
Speaker 1: your own situation. You would allude to it in passing,
Speaker 1: but this is the first time we really talked about
Speaker 1: it in detail. What made the difference for you? Why
Speaker 1: do you want to talk about it now?
Speaker 2: I received it. It was actually a video of Craig
Speaker 2: Loose standing at a kitchen bench in his care home
Speaker 2: and he was struggling to write his name, And even
Speaker 2: though it was a bitiful video and it was sent
Speaker 2: with the writing tent, it was heartbreaking for me because
Speaker 2: I realized then that this insidious disease had robbed him
Speaker 2: of his skills that he was so good at.
Speaker 1: So, yeah, it must have been a moment of just
Speaker 1: pure empathy for you, of feeling that this beautiful man
Speaker 1: who you have made sure is happy and safe, was
Speaker 1: not who he used to be. Yeah, it's our cohort
Speaker 1: who will have to face to mentor as we get
Speaker 1: older and this is clearly something that's coming for us.
Speaker 1: But we're also the careers, whether we're caring for elderly
Speaker 1: parents or our partners who are going through this. What
Speaker 1: would you say to other people who are caring for
Speaker 1: someone either who has a diagnosis or who is concerned
Speaker 1: about their partner or someone they love.
Speaker 2: I think it's absolutely get to look after yourself, to
Speaker 2: ensure that you have support around you. It's not often
Speaker 2: you feel like it is a one person job.
Speaker 1: You feel very.
Speaker 2: Alone, you're very vulnerable, but it's really important that you
Speaker 2: are reaching out to get support. I chose to be
Speaker 2: very private about it and only have very small select
Speaker 2: network of very close friends and my family who really
Speaker 2: provided that level of support, which was wonderful. But yeah,
Speaker 2: I guess you just need to yet actually have support
Speaker 2: around you.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Not be ashamed, No, not at all. Louise, Thank
Speaker 1: you very much.
Speaker 2: Thanks Claire.
Speaker 1: Louise Bryant's story is in The Australian and at the
Speaker 1: Australian Home dot are you right now