Dementia

Mr GARDNER (Morialta) (15:24): This afternoon I would like to talk a little bit about dementia and what we can do, as members of parliament, to ensure that our community is more accessible for people living with dementia and their families. September, as many members, I imagine, would know, is Dementia Awareness Month. There are more than 332,000 Australians living with dementia. Without a medical breakthrough the number of people living with dementia in Australia is expected to reach 900,000 by 2050, and each week there are 1,700 new diagnoses of dementia in Australia. That is one person every six minutes, and 170 people per week in South Australia alone.

There are over 100 different types of dementia. Alzheimer's disease is the most common and responsible for about 60 per cent of cases. There are 24,700 people in Australia living with younger-onset dementia, a diagnosis of dementia under the age of 65, including people as young as 30 years old. Three in 10 people over the age of 85 and almost one in 10 people over the age of 65 have dementia, and 1.2 million people are involved in the care of a person with dementia.

The point I make with the statistics is that dementia is prevalent broadly across Australia. I doubt whether there is a member of this house who does not have a family member or a close friend who has lived with dementia or has lived with someone living with dementia. It is the third leading cause of death in Australia and there is no cure. According to the Alzheimer's Australia website, on average symptoms of dementia are noticed by families three years before a firm diagnosis is made, so families are a critical part of the conversation we need to have when we talk about dementia and dementia-friendly communities.

At the last election the federal government promised $200 million for research to continue work on ways to prevent or cure dementia in their policy for dementia research. I do not mean to be partisan in this way, because I know that many members of the Labor Party are also deeply concerned about this, and I encourage all members of the house to look into becoming a Dementia Champion, as I am and as the Leader of the Opposition is. I am also aware that the member for Bright is already in the process of becoming one.

I note that several weeks ago the member for Bright, as part of the excellent work he does in that community, held a dementia forum in his electorate which was attended by over 100 people. He has inspired me to organise a similar forum in Morialta, which I will be doing on Tuesday 25 November, hopefully at the Campbelltown Function Centre at 2 o'clock, in partnership with Alzheimer's Australia, and I would like to thank them for the work they are doing and the work they are willing to do with other members in relation to supporting dementia-friendly communities.

The question we need to ask is this: what can a dementia-friendly community look like? Short of there being a cure in the near future, the thing we have to do is look for ways we can help people to live with dementia. People living with dementia need to feel like they still belong to the community, their social networks, their clubs and, importantly, that they have a role to play and a sense of purpose. A dementia-friendly community is one where the wider community is dementia aware. Education is important, and education about how to help people they may confront who have dementia. It also helps to reduce stigma and myths.

A dementia-friendly community is a place where what a person can do is the focus and not what they cannot do, where a person is not hidden away or ignored because people are ignorant or uncomfortable speaking to them or dealing with them or helping them. It is a community where the physical environment also enables people to get out and about safely, and where support services are helpful and enabling.

I encourage families of people living with dementia in my electorate of Morialta to come and talk to my office staff if they require assistance. At the beginning of this year I was very sorry to lose a long-serving staff member in Raelene Zanetti, who would be known to many people in the house for her work over many years. However, I am very pleased that Sarah Hennessy has joined my office team, working on Mondays, Tuesdays and Wednesdays. Sarah is a social worker who worked for nine years with Alzheimer's Australia, and she is a fount of knowledge for people in the community who require information about things they can do in their lives, groups they can organise or events they can be involved with to help make our community dementia friendly. I encourage all members of parliament to look into doing this sort of activity.