WEBVTT - We Need to Talk About Ageing - Uncut with Melissa Levi 0:00:00.200 --> 0:00:03.800 Life Uncut acknowledges the traditional custodians of country whose lands 0:00:03.840 --> 0:00:06.560 were never seated. We pay our respects to their elders 0:00:06.559 --> 0:00:07.600 past and present. 0:00:07.600 --> 0:00:11.399 Always was, always will be Aboriginal Land. This episode was 0:00:11.440 --> 0:00:24.280 recorded on Drug Wallamuta Land. Hi guys, and welcome back 0:00:24.280 --> 0:00:27.120 to another episode of Life on Cut. I'm Laura, I'm Brittany, 0:00:27.360 --> 0:00:30.640 and we have such a special interview for you today. 0:00:30.720 --> 0:00:33.120 We are talking to Melissa Levi. She is a clinical 0:00:33.159 --> 0:00:36.120 psychologist and she has written the book We Need to 0:00:36.159 --> 0:00:39.160 Talk About Aging Now. This is a conversation that has 0:00:39.240 --> 0:00:42.400 been very long awaited for me and we will get 0:00:42.400 --> 0:00:43.599 into the reasons why. 0:00:43.400 --> 0:00:45.720 It is such a personal and important conversation to me. 0:00:45.800 --> 0:00:49.479 But more so than that, if you have someone in 0:00:49.520 --> 0:00:53.559 your life experiencing dementia, a grandparent, a parent, you are 0:00:53.560 --> 0:00:55.960 going to get so much out of this chat. But 0:00:56.120 --> 0:00:59.000 for anyone who isn't and doesn't have someone and can't 0:00:59.000 --> 0:01:01.920 relate to that experience, I so hope that you listen 0:01:01.960 --> 0:01:03.880 to this episode as well. And the reason for that 0:01:04.040 --> 0:01:08.160 is is because this is truly a conversation around how 0:01:08.280 --> 0:01:11.039 we deal with our parents aging. And the thing is, 0:01:11.480 --> 0:01:13.760 if we are lucky enough, all of us are going 0:01:13.800 --> 0:01:16.679 to experience our parents aging, and if we don't get 0:01:16.720 --> 0:01:18.679 to experience that, then we're certainly going to have to 0:01:18.760 --> 0:01:21.800 experience our parents dying at some point in time. And 0:01:22.160 --> 0:01:25.679 it sounds grim and it sounds like an unbelievable reality. 0:01:26.240 --> 0:01:28.760 But something that Melissa talks about in this chat is 0:01:28.800 --> 0:01:34.839 how ignoring those conversations and never ever preparing for that reality, 0:01:35.040 --> 0:01:36.760 which is a reality that we're all going to be 0:01:36.800 --> 0:01:39.960 faced with one day, is actually so much more detrimental 0:01:40.000 --> 0:01:42.520 to your family ties. It's so much more detrimental to 0:01:42.560 --> 0:01:45.200 your healing than what it is if you're actually able 0:01:45.240 --> 0:01:47.080 to have those conversations with the people who you. 0:01:47.040 --> 0:01:47.639 Love the most. 0:01:47.960 --> 0:01:50.520 Something else I found really interesting about this is it's 0:01:50.560 --> 0:01:52.800 not just a chat for the people that have someone 0:01:52.840 --> 0:01:55.680 in their life with dementia, but it's a chat around 0:01:55.720 --> 0:01:58.640 how to prevent dementia, which I think is really important, 0:01:58.720 --> 0:02:01.520 especially off the back of we've seen Chris Hemsworth recently 0:02:01.520 --> 0:02:05.280 with his documentary where he discovered that he is more 0:02:05.360 --> 0:02:10.079 predisposed to early onset Alzheimer's. I think that hits different 0:02:10.080 --> 0:02:12.880 when someone in the public eye comes out and says, Wow, 0:02:12.919 --> 0:02:15.360 no one's exempt from this kind of stuff and it 0:02:15.360 --> 0:02:17.040 can really get anyone. And these are the things I'm 0:02:17.040 --> 0:02:19.160 going to change in my life to improve my life 0:02:19.160 --> 0:02:21.400 and to try and prevent that. So the conversation around 0:02:21.400 --> 0:02:24.919 prevention is just as important as a conversation around dealing 0:02:24.919 --> 0:02:25.760 with it totally. 0:02:25.800 --> 0:02:28.240 And I think for anybody who has it in their family, 0:02:28.600 --> 0:02:31.239 you live with this fear of like what if that's 0:02:31.280 --> 0:02:33.359 going to happen to me, or what if that's where 0:02:33.360 --> 0:02:36.240 I'm going to end up. We cover everything in this chat, 0:02:36.320 --> 0:02:40.360 from what successful aging looks like, how you can make 0:02:40.480 --> 0:02:43.760 and really support your family members, and I think mostly 0:02:43.840 --> 0:02:45.919 like how you can have conversations with your parents. It's 0:02:45.919 --> 0:02:49.440 a beautiful chat and we hope you enjoy. Recently, we 0:02:49.440 --> 0:02:53.160 were having a discussion on the podcast around dementia and 0:02:53.280 --> 0:02:55.600 aging and it came up in conversation. 0:02:55.919 --> 0:02:59.800 My grandma is currently in a nursing home. She was, 0:03:00.480 --> 0:03:01.120 she still is. 0:03:01.160 --> 0:03:03.800 It's such a hard thing to navigate, but she was 0:03:04.280 --> 0:03:06.880 like my second mum growing up, and she would be 0:03:06.919 --> 0:03:09.080 the person that I would go to for everything. 0:03:09.320 --> 0:03:10.240 I lived with my. 0:03:10.240 --> 0:03:13.720 Grandparents, so I was incredibly incredibly close with them, and 0:03:13.760 --> 0:03:18.800 dementia is something that runs really, really prolifically in my family. 0:03:19.000 --> 0:03:22.000 I don't really remember there ever being someone elderly on 0:03:22.000 --> 0:03:24.920 my mom's side that hasn't ended up having dementia, So 0:03:25.040 --> 0:03:27.680 for me, it's always also been a fear that I have. 0:03:28.040 --> 0:03:29.959 And one of the things that we spoke about, Britt 0:03:30.200 --> 0:03:33.000 was how I feel like my relationship with my nan 0:03:33.360 --> 0:03:36.840 has changed over the years because she just isn't the 0:03:36.840 --> 0:03:39.000 person that she used to be. She's not there anymore, 0:03:39.480 --> 0:03:43.800 and I've really struggled with how to be present when 0:03:43.840 --> 0:03:47.400 she doesn't understand that she has grandchildren, and sometimes it 0:03:47.400 --> 0:03:49.560 feels like she doesn't know whether I'm there or I'm 0:03:49.600 --> 0:03:51.800 not there, or I visited or I haven't visited. And 0:03:52.280 --> 0:03:55.160 you know, it's so easy once your grandparents move into 0:03:55.200 --> 0:03:58.000 a home and they're being cared for, and you still 0:03:58.040 --> 0:03:59.680 make time to go and see them, but you're kind 0:03:59.720 --> 0:04:01.360 of like, are they getting anything out of this? That 0:04:01.440 --> 0:04:04.040 was the big question that I had been asking and 0:04:04.120 --> 0:04:06.760 really grappling with, And when we had this conversation, there 0:04:06.760 --> 0:04:09.400 were so many people who wrote in who said that 0:04:09.440 --> 0:04:11.960 they were having similar experiences, whether it was with their 0:04:12.040 --> 0:04:16.160 mum or their parent, all their grandparents. But I think 0:04:16.200 --> 0:04:19.719 that it is so incredibly prevalent. This idea not just 0:04:19.760 --> 0:04:22.160 of dementia, but obviously aging is something that we all 0:04:22.240 --> 0:04:25.279 go through. And understanding what is the best way to 0:04:25.560 --> 0:04:29.280 support your parents to navigate that changing in relationship is 0:04:29.279 --> 0:04:31.960 something that I have such an interest in and I 0:04:32.000 --> 0:04:34.240 know so many of you did, which is why we 0:04:34.320 --> 0:04:37.560 have Melissa Levi, who was a clinical psychologist with over 0:04:37.640 --> 0:04:41.000 a decade of experience at Simpsons Hospital. She's helped thousands 0:04:41.040 --> 0:04:44.280 of families navigate at the aging journey and she's also 0:04:44.279 --> 0:04:46.359 written a book which was fabulous and it's called We 0:04:46.440 --> 0:04:49.400 Need to Talk about Aging, because we absolutely do. It's 0:04:49.440 --> 0:04:52.400 this thing that we all shy away from, but it's 0:04:52.400 --> 0:04:54.120 where we're all going to end up if we're lucky 0:04:54.240 --> 0:04:55.080 enough to end up there. 0:04:55.600 --> 0:04:57.159 Melissa, Welcome to Lafelon card. 0:04:57.200 --> 0:04:59.520 I am so excited to be here and I love 0:04:59.680 --> 0:05:03.560 the podcast like yours is bringing aging and dementia into 0:05:03.600 --> 0:05:04.920 the spotlight. 0:05:04.880 --> 0:05:05.640 Straight off the bat. 0:05:05.680 --> 0:05:08.200 Melissa, I think the most important question on everyone's lips 0:05:08.279 --> 0:05:10.719 is how do we not age? 0:05:11.880 --> 0:05:14.440 If that could figure that out, you can go buy 0:05:14.480 --> 0:05:15.760 an island retire. 0:05:16.279 --> 0:05:18.840 Oh no. It was funny because we were talking about 0:05:18.839 --> 0:05:21.200 this guy that was viral on the news recently because 0:05:21.240 --> 0:05:23.920 agent has such this negative connotation, but he's been viral 0:05:23.960 --> 0:05:26.040 on the news because he's spending over two million dollars 0:05:26.080 --> 0:05:29.160 a year trying to stop aging and slow aging, and 0:05:29.320 --> 0:05:32.800 he's got like penis injections. He's doing all sorts of things. 0:05:32.839 --> 0:05:35.599 But it's to the point that how society is so 0:05:36.040 --> 0:05:38.880 petrified of aging? And what do you say to that? 0:05:39.279 --> 0:05:41.840 It's so funny because firstly, I get it, and I 0:05:41.839 --> 0:05:44.719 think before I started working with older people, I think 0:05:44.800 --> 0:05:47.200 a lot of our thoughts about aging are sort of 0:05:47.279 --> 0:05:51.080 driven by a lot of myths and stereotypes. What I've 0:05:51.080 --> 0:05:54.559 come to realize, though, is that aging is actually something 0:05:54.600 --> 0:05:57.600 where we can design our own journey to a large extent. 0:05:57.680 --> 0:05:59.400 And I think we'll get into that is, you know, 0:05:59.680 --> 0:06:02.080 we can't always control the twists and turns. We can't 0:06:02.120 --> 0:06:04.840 always control whether we get dementia, We can't always control, 0:06:04.880 --> 0:06:07.560 you know, those changes in health. But how do we 0:06:07.600 --> 0:06:09.960 respond to that? How do we still design a life 0:06:10.000 --> 0:06:12.799 that can be sort of meaningful and joyful in spite 0:06:12.800 --> 0:06:15.679 of that, and recognizing that, oh my god, that's actually 0:06:15.720 --> 0:06:19.560 a possibility. And the other thing is a client said 0:06:19.560 --> 0:06:22.359 this to me and she said, Darling, if none of 0:06:22.440 --> 0:06:24.640 us were to age, if none of us were to die, 0:06:24.720 --> 0:06:27.800 if time was infinite, what would ever be special? 0:06:28.600 --> 0:06:29.360 And I will. 0:06:29.160 --> 0:06:32.160 Always remember her saying that because I just think it's true. 0:06:32.240 --> 0:06:36.120 I think, you know, what makes life interesting and special, 0:06:36.279 --> 0:06:38.560 what allows us to grow as people is the passage 0:06:38.560 --> 0:06:41.320 of time and getting older. But I think we also 0:06:41.480 --> 0:06:43.800 really need to shift what we think of as the 0:06:43.839 --> 0:06:45.600 possibilities for later life. 0:06:45.920 --> 0:06:49.080 What was it about aging and working with people who 0:06:49.080 --> 0:06:51.360 are elderly that drew you to that occupation? 0:06:51.920 --> 0:06:54.240 So Funnily enough, when I was doing my Masters of 0:06:54.240 --> 0:06:57.919 Clinical Psychology, I wanted to work with kids. I always 0:06:58.440 --> 0:07:01.440 wanted to work with kids. Clearly, you get a sense 0:07:01.440 --> 0:07:03.880 this isn't how it played out. Basically, at UNI, I 0:07:03.960 --> 0:07:06.240 just drew the short straw. I was told that I'd 0:07:06.240 --> 0:07:09.039 be spending six months working in an older people's mental 0:07:09.040 --> 0:07:12.600 health service. So I called my mom, had a massive cry. 0:07:13.040 --> 0:07:15.000 And what I realized was I was crying because I 0:07:15.080 --> 0:07:17.720 was scared, like I knew, like you, Laura, on a 0:07:17.760 --> 0:07:21.400 really personal level. At the time, mis Aida, my grandfather 0:07:21.520 --> 0:07:24.880 was living with dementia, and a few weeks earlier I 0:07:25.200 --> 0:07:27.720 had spent the weekend with him in Melbourne, come back 0:07:27.760 --> 0:07:30.480 to Sydney, landed on the tarmac, turned on my phone. 0:07:30.840 --> 0:07:33.360 There were about a half a dozen missed calls from him. 0:07:33.960 --> 0:07:36.640 I called him back and he was really agitated and 0:07:36.680 --> 0:07:39.600 he just said, like, Melissy, I don't see you anymore, 0:07:39.640 --> 0:07:42.080 I don't hear from you anymore. When are you going 0:07:42.120 --> 0:07:44.600 to come and visit me? And of course I realized 0:07:44.600 --> 0:07:47.040 in that moment that he had no recollection of having 0:07:47.080 --> 0:07:50.880 spent days and days together, like living in his home. 0:07:51.440 --> 0:07:53.880 And I was shattered, and I was just so scared 0:07:53.920 --> 0:07:57.480 of confronting that same sense of loss and struggle and 0:07:57.520 --> 0:08:01.200 illness in you know, other families on misplacement. And I 0:08:01.240 --> 0:08:02.800 was also scared of you know, what am I going 0:08:02.840 --> 0:08:04.800 to do for them? How can I make a difference? 0:08:04.880 --> 0:08:06.800 You know. It was this belief that you know, well, 0:08:06.840 --> 0:08:09.800 I can't change this for them. But what I learned 0:08:09.840 --> 0:08:12.800 really quickly is that we can actually make a huge impact. 0:08:13.080 --> 0:08:16.640 And that totally changed the course of my life and 0:08:16.800 --> 0:08:19.200 working now. You know, for the past decade, I've now 0:08:19.440 --> 0:08:21.800 worked with more than a thousand families and it's been 0:08:21.840 --> 0:08:26.120 an absolute privilege and it's what inspired the book. And 0:08:26.400 --> 0:08:28.720 now I'm working with my hobby, who's a lot more 0:08:28.720 --> 0:08:32.120 tech savvy than me, and we're actually building these online 0:08:32.160 --> 0:08:35.800 courses to take all of the education and you know, 0:08:35.880 --> 0:08:38.839 strategies and everything I give to families face to face, 0:08:39.440 --> 0:08:40.920 to families all over the world. 0:08:41.320 --> 0:08:44.000 You know, for me, I remember watching it was an 0:08:44.040 --> 0:08:46.560 episode of You Can't Ask That, and I was standing 0:08:46.600 --> 0:08:48.480 in my kitchen just doing the washing up, and it 0:08:48.520 --> 0:08:51.520 was on the TV, and it was all about dementia. 0:08:52.040 --> 0:08:54.080 And I think for me, even though it has been 0:08:54.080 --> 0:08:56.199 something that has run in my family, something that my 0:08:56.240 --> 0:08:59.880 grandma has dementia, her sister died of Alzheimer's, I did 0:09:00.280 --> 0:09:02.920 understand it properly, and I understood it from the logical 0:09:02.920 --> 0:09:05.520 sense of what it actually is, like how she was 0:09:05.559 --> 0:09:08.800 experiencing it. But I'd never ever heard anybody who had 0:09:08.840 --> 0:09:12.720 been diagnosed with dementia speak about their own experience of dementia, 0:09:12.880 --> 0:09:15.880 someone who was cognizant enough to talk about it and 0:09:16.080 --> 0:09:19.080 was accepting enough of the diagnosis that they could explain 0:09:19.200 --> 0:09:22.560 how they were experiencing it. And for anyone who hasn't seen, 0:09:22.760 --> 0:09:24.800 you know, who's struggling with someone in their family who 0:09:24.880 --> 0:09:27.000 has this, I would so recommend going and watching that 0:09:27.040 --> 0:09:29.840 episode of You Can't Ask That because it was so 0:09:29.920 --> 0:09:31.760 amazing to me and it gave me so much more 0:09:31.800 --> 0:09:36.960 empathy around how people who struggle with dementia experience it 0:09:37.040 --> 0:09:39.880 and also how you might think that they don't remember something, 0:09:39.880 --> 0:09:42.760 but they still have lucid moments of memory, how it's 0:09:42.760 --> 0:09:45.440 not always just completely gone, and they can come in 0:09:45.480 --> 0:09:47.120 and out of that absolutely. 0:09:47.200 --> 0:09:48.640 And I think it goes back to what you said 0:09:48.640 --> 0:09:50.960 at the beginning, which was that you still make time 0:09:51.000 --> 0:09:52.840 to go visit your nan, but you have this sort 0:09:52.880 --> 0:09:55.840 of feeling of like does it matter? Does it mean something? 0:09:56.320 --> 0:09:58.400 And I guess the biggest piece of advice that I 0:09:58.440 --> 0:10:01.719 often give to families is, you know, with dementia, I 0:10:01.760 --> 0:10:05.800 think it's really about stepping into their world. So it 0:10:05.880 --> 0:10:08.400 may be a fleeting moment, but if you can give 0:10:08.440 --> 0:10:11.720 someone meaning, if you can bring someone joy in that moment, 0:10:12.360 --> 0:10:15.040 that that's a moment well spent and they may not 0:10:15.160 --> 0:10:19.040 remember it, but you will. This will, ultimately, like Laura 0:10:19.080 --> 0:10:21.960 for yourself, one day, become your sort of highlight reil, 0:10:22.000 --> 0:10:25.520 your photo album of your time with your nan. And 0:10:25.559 --> 0:10:27.840 I think of a gentleman who I'm going to call Nico, 0:10:28.040 --> 0:10:31.040 just to protect his privacy, and I'll change some details, 0:10:31.080 --> 0:10:33.920 but he was living with dementia, and when I first 0:10:34.000 --> 0:10:37.280 gave him the diagnosis, he was this big, sort of 0:10:37.440 --> 0:10:40.880 larger than life Greek man with this, you know, huge family, 0:10:41.679 --> 0:10:44.800 and he just wept. He just broke down and wept 0:10:45.000 --> 0:10:47.600 because he thought that I had given him a death sentence. 0:10:48.320 --> 0:10:50.679 And what he thought was that, like most of us, 0:10:50.679 --> 0:10:52.760 when we think of dementia, we think of the worst 0:10:52.800 --> 0:10:56.040 case scenario. We think of someone who is maybe sort 0:10:56.080 --> 0:11:00.640 of nonverbal and doesn't recognize their family anymore. And I 0:11:00.640 --> 0:11:02.400 guess there's a few things to know. I think the 0:11:02.440 --> 0:11:04.079 first is, and this is what I said to Nico 0:11:04.160 --> 0:11:06.720 and his family, is that dementia can be a really 0:11:07.000 --> 0:11:11.280 long journey, but also a really individual journey. For some people, 0:11:11.360 --> 0:11:14.640 it can progress really slowly. For other people it progresses 0:11:14.640 --> 0:11:17.600 more quickly. But for the majority of the patients that 0:11:17.640 --> 0:11:20.760 I've seen, most of them don't reach that sort of 0:11:21.040 --> 0:11:23.240 end stage that comes to mind when we hear the 0:11:23.280 --> 0:11:26.480 word dementia. And even for those that do, we can 0:11:26.720 --> 0:11:29.880 still give them quality of life. And for him and 0:11:29.960 --> 0:11:32.480 his family, just educating them, and I think, you know, 0:11:32.520 --> 0:11:34.720 I wish he could have seen that episode of you 0:11:34.800 --> 0:11:36.959 can't ask that, because I think it would have really 0:11:37.000 --> 0:11:40.320 shifted his thinking about what was possible for him. And 0:11:40.360 --> 0:11:43.840 he lived for I think six years after his diagnosis 0:11:43.880 --> 0:11:46.920 at home and continued to function, you know, really well 0:11:46.960 --> 0:11:50.240 and independently, still do things, you know, spend time with 0:11:50.320 --> 0:11:52.680 the grandkids, go to the local club, you know, do 0:11:52.840 --> 0:11:56.720 things that made his life meaningful. And then his daughters 0:11:56.720 --> 0:11:59.200 had always assumed that his wish would be to stay 0:11:59.200 --> 0:12:02.400 at home at all costs, but he actually said to 0:12:02.440 --> 0:12:05.640 them that after his wife passed away, that he didn't 0:12:05.679 --> 0:12:08.760 want his daughters looking after him at home if he 0:12:08.840 --> 0:12:11.520 needed sort of twenty four to seven care. So when 0:12:11.520 --> 0:12:14.200 the time came that he did need more care, he 0:12:14.240 --> 0:12:18.480 actually chose to move into a Greek speaking residential age 0:12:18.480 --> 0:12:20.960 care home, a nursing home. And I went to visit 0:12:21.040 --> 0:12:23.480 him there and I said, you know, Nico, how is it? 0:12:23.679 --> 0:12:26.400 And he said, you know, everything here is so good. 0:12:26.440 --> 0:12:28.959 You know this is good. But there's one problem, Melissa. 0:12:29.000 --> 0:12:32.679 He said, everyone here is Greek. I said, Niko, your Greek? 0:12:33.200 --> 0:12:37.680 He said, shit, am I. And what we did for 0:12:37.800 --> 0:12:40.880 him as his dementia progressed was he had been a 0:12:40.920 --> 0:12:44.000 handy man he'd been a painter, you know, so in 0:12:44.040 --> 0:12:47.520 the courtyard of this nursing home, they gave him pots 0:12:47.520 --> 0:12:50.640 of paint. He would pass the days painting the back fence, 0:12:50.679 --> 0:12:52.640 you know, starting from one end to the other and 0:12:52.679 --> 0:12:57.000 then going again, you know, gardening, fixing bits of furniture. 0:12:57.640 --> 0:12:59.720 They let him have a cigar in the back corner, 0:12:59.720 --> 0:13:01.440 even though he wasn't meant to. They just sort of 0:13:01.480 --> 0:13:05.120 turned a blind eye, so he didn't always remember how 0:13:05.160 --> 0:13:07.360 he had spent the day. But if you went and 0:13:07.440 --> 0:13:10.680 visited him at any given moment, he was in sort 0:13:10.720 --> 0:13:13.400 of a joyful place. He was in flow. He was 0:13:13.440 --> 0:13:17.199 doing stuff that made him feel like himself. And there 0:13:17.240 --> 0:13:19.640 was another lady that I saw just to I guess 0:13:19.720 --> 0:13:23.679 acknowledge that sort of worst case scenario, who I'll call Sophia. 0:13:24.320 --> 0:13:26.160 And when I first met her, she was in the 0:13:26.240 --> 0:13:29.599 high care dementia unit of her nursing home, her residential 0:13:29.600 --> 0:13:32.480 age care home. And when I met her, she was 0:13:32.520 --> 0:13:35.640 sort of slumped over in her chair, her face was 0:13:35.679 --> 0:13:38.439 like inches away from the tray in front of her, 0:13:39.120 --> 0:13:42.400 and she had been nonverbal for a long time. And 0:13:42.440 --> 0:13:44.160 I spoke with the family and they said, you know, 0:13:44.200 --> 0:13:47.040 she'd always been a really devout Catholic who loved going 0:13:47.040 --> 0:13:51.320 to church. So we started playing some hymns and songs 0:13:51.760 --> 0:13:54.800 and she couldn't articulate the words, but she would hum along, 0:13:55.440 --> 0:13:58.240 and she lifted her head and with the help of 0:13:58.280 --> 0:14:01.600 the care staff, sat up in her her chair and 0:14:02.200 --> 0:14:04.719 you know, we got the care staff to massage her 0:14:04.880 --> 0:14:07.400 arms and her shoulders. She'd sit there going like mmm. 0:14:08.320 --> 0:14:11.400 You know. It was so pleasurable for her. And she 0:14:11.480 --> 0:14:13.960 used to love Brandy Custard and she was on a 0:14:14.000 --> 0:14:17.600 special diet so that she wouldn't aspirate, wouldn't choke. And 0:14:17.640 --> 0:14:20.440 the family said, you know what, we would rather take 0:14:20.480 --> 0:14:23.760 the risk of her choking on Brandy custer lots of 0:14:23.840 --> 0:14:27.680 bit coal dying than foregoing it. And that was the 0:14:27.720 --> 0:14:30.360 decision they made, and that's what she did. And it's 0:14:30.480 --> 0:14:33.360 just this idea that your story, even if it's really 0:14:33.400 --> 0:14:36.840 really hard, I think, with the right education and support, 0:14:36.880 --> 0:14:39.760 there are so many possibilities for your family and for 0:14:39.800 --> 0:14:40.760 the people you love. 0:14:41.400 --> 0:14:44.240 I think right now a lot of the general population 0:14:44.360 --> 0:14:47.840 are learning just how prevalent it is from crazily enough 0:14:47.920 --> 0:14:50.600 Hollywood stars that are coming out and talking about their 0:14:50.600 --> 0:14:53.040 dementia all their families have talked about the dementia, and 0:14:53.080 --> 0:14:56.880 I talk about Bruce Willis who had fronto temple, who 0:14:56.920 --> 0:15:00.480 has fronto temporal dementia, Robin Williams, who I think it 0:15:00.480 --> 0:15:04.240 was a lowly bodied dementia. How many different types of 0:15:04.280 --> 0:15:05.280 dementia are there. 0:15:06.000 --> 0:15:08.320 So the way that I think about dementia, because it 0:15:08.480 --> 0:15:12.080 is really confusing. One of the most common questions families 0:15:12.120 --> 0:15:14.280 ask me is you know what is the difference between 0:15:14.280 --> 0:15:18.040 dementia and Alzheimer's disease. So I think of dementia as 0:15:18.080 --> 0:15:21.880 an umbrella term. It's an umbrella that basically tells us 0:15:21.880 --> 0:15:25.000 that something has changed in someone's brain. There is some 0:15:25.080 --> 0:15:27.880 sort of disease process in the brain that's affecting their 0:15:27.920 --> 0:15:32.280 ability to think and function day to day and their behavior, 0:15:32.720 --> 0:15:35.560 but we don't really know much more than that. Under 0:15:35.600 --> 0:15:40.440 that umbrella. There are over one hundred different subtypes of dementia. Wow, 0:15:40.640 --> 0:15:43.520 So Alzheimer's is the most common. It accounts for about 0:15:43.560 --> 0:15:46.800 seventy percent of all dementia cases, which is why people 0:15:46.880 --> 0:15:51.040 confuse the term. But it's only one type, and each 0:15:51.160 --> 0:15:54.120 type has its own sort of pathology, like a different 0:15:54.240 --> 0:15:57.520 cause of the changes in the brain and therefore its 0:15:57.560 --> 0:16:00.600 own symptom profile. So a lot of people think that 0:16:00.640 --> 0:16:04.560 for dementia, everybody gets memory loss, but the examples that 0:16:04.640 --> 0:16:08.040 you've given, memory loss is typically the first sort of 0:16:08.080 --> 0:16:12.880 clinical symptom of Alzheimer's. But for Bruce Willis, his first 0:16:12.920 --> 0:16:15.320 symptoms were language based apha. 0:16:15.720 --> 0:16:16.600 Also, I think. 0:16:16.480 --> 0:16:20.200 Correct correct aphasia, and you know, for Robin Williams, I 0:16:20.240 --> 0:16:22.040 think it was a lot more to do with sort 0:16:22.080 --> 0:16:26.720 of his mood and personality and psychological sort of symptoms. 0:16:27.040 --> 0:16:31.440 So yeah, there's huge variability. And just briefly, Laura, maybe 0:16:31.480 --> 0:16:34.080 to put your mind a little bit at ease, is 0:16:34.120 --> 0:16:36.880 that Another big question I get asked is around if 0:16:37.000 --> 0:16:40.480 mum has dementia, if granddad had dementia, will I get 0:16:40.480 --> 0:16:44.160 dementia tally? And it's a huge fear people have. The 0:16:44.200 --> 0:16:47.840 short answer is no, and the long answer is but 0:16:47.920 --> 0:16:51.120 there are sort of exceptions to that. So if mum 0:16:51.240 --> 0:16:55.480 or dad have Alzheimer's disease or vascular dementia, which is 0:16:55.480 --> 0:16:58.760 the second most common type, and it was diagnosed maybe 0:16:58.800 --> 0:17:03.760 after the age of six, the likelihood that it is 0:17:03.840 --> 0:17:07.919 inherited is really slim. So there are some genes that 0:17:08.000 --> 0:17:10.040 are involved. You might have heard of, like the APO 0:17:10.200 --> 0:17:12.399 E four gene for example. 0:17:12.119 --> 0:17:12.919 Certainly have not, but. 0:17:15.040 --> 0:17:16.879 How do you live your life not hearing? 0:17:17.600 --> 0:17:18.159 Everyone knows that. 0:17:24.840 --> 0:17:27.359 But basically what we know from the research now is 0:17:27.359 --> 0:17:31.080 that there are so many other factors, lifestyle factors, other 0:17:31.119 --> 0:17:34.040 factors that have a much stronger bearing on whether you 0:17:34.080 --> 0:17:37.720 will get dementia than carrying that gene. There are certain 0:17:37.800 --> 0:17:40.879 dementias where there is a stronger hereditary component, and just 0:17:40.920 --> 0:17:43.920 as an example, that would be like early onset Alzheimer's. 0:17:44.560 --> 0:17:47.680 So when mum or dad have been diagnosed before age 0:17:47.720 --> 0:17:50.840 sixty five, and then some of the other subtypes that 0:17:50.880 --> 0:17:53.840 are less common can have a stronger genetic component. But 0:17:54.160 --> 0:17:56.960 if mum or Dad has sort of Alzheimer's vascular, I 0:17:57.000 --> 0:17:59.919 would not be concerned that it's then inevitable that you 0:18:00.200 --> 0:18:00.719 going to get it. 0:18:00.920 --> 0:18:04.159 I believe that's why Christal Hemsworth did his documentary recently 0:18:04.200 --> 0:18:06.280 and why he's publicly come out and said I'm going 0:18:06.320 --> 0:18:07.639 to take a step back from acting and be with 0:18:07.720 --> 0:18:10.960 my family because they found a genetic link for him, 0:18:10.960 --> 0:18:13.680 like a predisposition to it. So that is I guess 0:18:13.680 --> 0:18:16.479 what you're talking about, where there are sometimes this genetic 0:18:16.600 --> 0:18:17.600 link and predisposition. 0:18:17.720 --> 0:18:19.440 What about if it's a looser link, Kitche. 0:18:19.480 --> 0:18:22.240 I mean we've just touched on if it's your direct parents, 0:18:22.320 --> 0:18:24.320 but what if it's say, like so, for me, that 0:18:24.560 --> 0:18:27.560 was something that is in my family. My nana's sister, 0:18:28.040 --> 0:18:30.840 she passed away of Alzheimer's in her sixties, so she 0:18:31.119 --> 0:18:35.080 had a very aggressive and was diagnosed extremely young, and 0:18:35.480 --> 0:18:37.200 that genetic link has kind of always been the one 0:18:37.200 --> 0:18:38.880 that scared me. And I think that that is where 0:18:38.880 --> 0:18:41.520 it's prevalent in my family for example. 0:18:41.520 --> 0:18:45.919 And your nan with her dementia was diagnosed. 0:18:45.240 --> 0:18:45.840 Later in life. 0:18:45.920 --> 0:18:48.159 Later in life. I think you'd have to speak to 0:18:48.200 --> 0:18:50.919 a geneticist on this because it gets quite complicated. But 0:18:51.119 --> 0:18:54.080 my understanding, whenever we would take sort of clinical histories 0:18:54.119 --> 0:18:56.880 and look at genetics, we'd really be looking at people's parents, 0:18:57.400 --> 0:19:00.440 maybe grandparents. Yeah, right, and then I think the sort 0:19:00.480 --> 0:19:03.040 of genetic component gets weaker and weaker as it sort 0:19:03.040 --> 0:19:04.960 of disperses out from there. 0:19:06.760 --> 0:19:08.680 I mean, because we all think about it, right, We're like, oh, 0:19:08.720 --> 0:19:10.919 do we have to do an extra sudokua week, Like 0:19:11.040 --> 0:19:12.960 what is it that we do to prevent dementsua? 0:19:13.080 --> 0:19:14.720 Or what can bring dementia on? 0:19:14.960 --> 0:19:18.320 So I love this question because in twenty seventeen and 0:19:18.359 --> 0:19:20.919 then in twenty twenty, there was a report published in 0:19:20.960 --> 0:19:23.879 the Landset, which is one of the most prestigious medical 0:19:23.960 --> 0:19:27.360 journals in the world, and it was really exciting because 0:19:27.440 --> 0:19:30.280 it was a huge, huge report looking at you know, 0:19:30.320 --> 0:19:33.679 an enormous amount of data, and what they concluded is 0:19:33.720 --> 0:19:37.280 that about forty percent of diagnosed cases of dementia are 0:19:37.359 --> 0:19:41.320 due to modifiable risk factors, so about forty percent of 0:19:41.359 --> 0:19:43.919 cases are preventable. Wow, and these are things that we 0:19:43.960 --> 0:19:46.600 can take action on. So some of them seem sort 0:19:46.600 --> 0:19:49.639 of really basic and intuitive, but basically the way that 0:19:49.680 --> 0:19:52.399 I boil it down. And for those people that have 0:19:52.480 --> 0:19:55.800