Monday, July 9, 2012

The Pink Elephant - Preparing for the Possibility of Dementia


Heart breaking stories about dementia are becoming frighteningly more frequent in the media, but the majority of people stalwartly persist in denial; “it will never happen to me”, “there will be a cure” or “I’m eating right and exercising my brain to prevent it”.  Unfortunately, the statistics are pretty damning.  In Canada alone, 1.12 million individuals are expected to be living with dementia by 2038.  In fact, one person is diagnosed with dementia every five minutes.  Those are intimidating numbers even for the strongest optimist.  Perhaps it is time to start talking about the pink elephant in the room, preparing for the possibility of developing dementia.