This festive season as your loved ones gather to celebrate, spare a thought for those Australian families who, this Christmas, will for the first time, realize that dementia has visited their family.
The discovery is often slow to take shape and at this time of the year achingly sad. It could be the adult children travelling from interstate who haven’t seen Mum or Dad for a few months that first notice that something is wrong, or grandchildren flying home from overseas to surprise Nan or Grandad that get the first inkling that things just aren’t right with their ageing relative.
As a family gathers around the dining room table in the usual way, they may notice that Mum seems distant and confused and has forgotten to make the pudding and that her hair and make-up, always so beautiful, are slightly askew. Perhaps Grandpa’s front lawn, a lifetime work of art and tendered with such care, especially in the summer growing season, has surprisingly been let go and then you notice that the Christmas lights are not up either.
It’s in that thing that is hard to put your finger on and difficult to pin down, the subtle change that reveals that things are just not the same as they were, where dementia often steals into a family’s life. And sadly, because life is so busy for most families, it often takes the Christmas slow down and the opportunity it affords for families to gather and compare notes, for reality to dawn. And so begins the long journey into dementia that has become the shared grief of too many Australian families.
Today there are an estimated 400,000 Australians living with dementia and as the Baby Boomers move beyond seventy, that number is destined to increase sharply. By mid-century it will top almost a million. To try to make such huge numbers real, that means that every day this year an estimated 250 will develop some form of dementia.
That means that in suburbs, villages and towns across Australia, in these twelve days of Christmas, 3000 will start their dementia experience. So do spare a thought for those homes where their family stories, will forever after link Christmas with the sad recollection of the diagnosis of a fatal disease of a loved relative.
For many of us Christmas, such a celebration of shared memories, still brings light and hope and its message of love still resonates in our lives. For those struggling with dementia that means that people can and do continue to live happy and fulfilled lives in spite of a diagnosis. For most of the time with the disease, most people with dementia will live at home, where they want to be. They will remain that deeply loved matriarch or fun filled uncle or sister or devoted parent that we have always known. Dementia is often described as robbing someone of their life but it can’t rob a dearly loved relative of their uniqueness, of what they achieved in their life or of the relationships they had, the love they imparted, the joys they experienced or of the individual dignity they will always retain.
If you are one of those families that will struggle with dementia this season, perhaps one message of Christmas is to guard against sorrow. Continue the customs and habits that delight your family and have been handed on to you by that relative who is now struggling to remember them. Spend time with them and speak calmly with the patience they deserve. Include them in the gift giving and let them nurse granddaughter’s new baby. Reminisce as you always have and speak to them in those familiar ways that families all enjoy. In the often mad clamour of an Australian Christmas give them the importance and affection that is their due and celebrate them still for the unique personality that they have and will never lose no matter the course their dementia takes.
For support, information, and counselling contact the Dementia Australia Helpline on 1800 100 500.
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