It would come as little surprise to many that the Myall Lakes electorate has the dubious honour of having the highest incidence of dementia in the State, marginally ahead of the Tweed and Port Macquarie.
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An estimated 2289 people in the Myall Lakes electorate are living with dementia with 2238 in the Tweed and 2230 in Port Macquarie.
This number is expected to more than double to 4724 within the next 30 years.
In a report, The Economic Cost of Dementia in Australia 2016-2056, commissioned by Alzheimer’s Australia, and released earlier this month, an estimated 244 new cases of dementia will be diagnosed nationally every day this year alone.
This is expected to cost NSW $4.7 billion, an amount predicted to soar to a staggering $5.96 billion in eight years.
However, the report also found that just a five per cent reduction in the number of people with dementia over the age of 65 could lead to savings of $5.7 billion until 2025.
With this in mind the Great Lakes Dementia Friendly Communities steering committee was formed last year to tackle some of the infinite obstacles faced by the many living with dementia in our community.
Headed by local member, Stephen Bromhead, the committee hopes to break down or remove some of the barriers people living with dementia face on a daily basis.
According to the Alzheimer’s Society a dementia friendly community is described as a city, town or village where people with dementia are understood, respected and supported and confident they can contribute to community life.
In a dementia friendly community people will be aware of and understand dementia and people with dementia will feel included and involved and have choice and control over their day-to-day lives.
In Port Macquarie, where a committee has been working on the model for a number of years, dementia friendly has been described as a community where people are dementia aware, therefore helping to reduce stigma and myths.
Health staff are educated about dementia and treat people with respect and empathy, while retail and cafe staff know about dementia and are helping and have a caring attitude.
Most importantly, people living with dementia feel like they still belong to the community, their social networks, their clubs and importantly have a role to play.
Mr Bromhead is urging the community to act now.
“I would like to see every business and every community organisation become dementia friendly,” he said.
“It costs nothing and only takes a few minutes to become an accredited dementia friendly organisation.”