Facing Dementia Together: Campaign highlights diagnosis at early ages

More than 90,000 people are currently living with dementia in Scotland and in excess of 3,000 of those are under 65.

In the week that Alzheimer Scotland launched a major new campaign, Challenge Dementia, to raise greater awareness and vital funds to help fight it, we speak to two people who have been affected by early onset dementia.

IT’S a measure of Sam Ross’s character that he has used his dementia diagnosis to try to help others.

He was given the news just before his 60th birthday and, once he came to terms with the shock, has talked publicly about his experience in the hope it will not only help others but reduce the stigma surrounding the condition.

He also appears in a new video promoting the Challenge Dementia campaign.

“Coming to terms with it has made me a better person,” said Sam, now 73.

“Once I accepted it, this gave me the confidence to go out and talk about it.”

The dad-of-three from Helensburgh has spoken at conferences in front of fellow dementia patients, carers and healthcare professionals.

But it wasn’t always that way. It took him six months to accept the diagnosis.

“I was in denial for a long time,” he admitted.

Sam was a motor mechanic with the Ministry of Defence and although he’d always been a little forgetful, it became more serious when he forgot about major repairs he’d done on a bus.

“I had a brain scan and they found a couple of blood vessels had deteriorated. An MRI scan confirmed it.”

Life was thrown up in the air but Sam credits his wife Christine for being there for him. “She has a white board at home and every day she writes up everything I have to do before she goes to work.

“She makes sure I phone her when I get up and when I come in, just to keep her up to date, and I always have my phone on me, with my sister’s and my kids’ numbers in it, as well as an SOS button.

“I couldn’t be without her.”

He spends a lot of time at the Helensburgh Dementia Resource Centre, also volunteering there with Christine to help others in the same way they’ve been helped.

“Being here has given me a new lease of life,” he added. “I’m no superstar – I just want to be able to help others.”

Natasha Hamilton, from Edinburgh, hasn’t had as much time as Sam to come to terms with her mum’s early onset diagnosis but she too is determined to smash the stigma attached to the illness.

Her mum, Anne Duke, was diagnosed two years ago at just 56.

“There were warning signs about three years in advance, but it’s only now we realise that,” Natasha said.

“She would repeat herself, occasionally get off at the wrong train station and wouldn’t turn up at a time we’d arranged to meet.

“Mum actually worked with older people, including people with Alzheimer’s, and her gran had early onset, so I think she probably recognised the signs and knew it was coming, but didn’t want to talk to anyone about it.”

Anne still lives in the family home in East Kilbride and Natasha and her dad, two sisters, brother and mother-in-law all pitch in to make sure she has everything she needs.

“We can still have a conversation with her and she knows what she wants to eat and to watch on the TV, but she just can’t do things herself anymore.”

Natasha has started her own campaign, But Alzheimer’s Is For Old People, to help change their perceptions about dementia.

She’s also taking part in the Edinburgh 10K with friend Rebecca Halleron in May to raise money for Challenge Dementia, while her husband Andrew and friend, Ian Fleming, are taking part in the half marathon.

“As well as raising money to support the charity, I’m really passionate about breaking through old myths associated with the illness – dementia is not just about forgetting things and it can be diagnosed earlier in life, just like my mum.”

Go to challengedementiascotland.org for more information on the campaign.

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