Margaret has just celebrated her 80^th Birthday, however she doesn’t know this, let alone her own name, as in 2004 she was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease.

Having migrated to Australia from Scotland in 1963 Margaret, fondly known as Greta, was able to live happily with her two children and husband for many years, moving from Perth, to Papua New Guinea and eventually to Melbourne.

After her husband’s death in 1993 she threw herself into caring for her grandchildren and successfully maintaining her home alone.

It wasn’t until 2004 that cracks began to show. It began with simply forgetting times of appointments or forgetting to switch off appliances, but after missing a connecting flight from Dubai to Scotland family members started to realize it wasn’t simply a normal memory problem.

According to Alzheimer’s Australia Victoria CEO Maree McCabe the number of people diagnosed with dementia is quickly growing.

“With more than 82,000 people living with dementia in Victoria we know this disease is touching many people. As our population ages the prevalence of dementia is projected to increase to more than 246,000 by 2050.”

“Each week, there are more than 1.800 new cases of dementia in Australia. That’s approximately one person every six minutes.”

Like many sufferers, Greta maintained that it was just forgetfulness and was able to live in her home until 2010. When she was no longer able to drive and there were fears for her being alone she was moved to an aged care facility.

Devastatingly, while the disease was getting progressively worse, Greta still believed she was fine. She was constantly begging to go home, even being found wandering the streets after accidently being let out. She would consistently talk about ‘when I go home’ and would become agitated when told that she lived in the facility now.

While dementia is so common, sufferers often find themselves feeling alone and in denial. This is why Maree believes education is so important.

“It is important that people living with dementia know that they are not alone and that there is support available to enable them to live well with dementia.”

Attempting to maintain a normal life, for a while Greta was able to continue with her favorite hobby, water aerobics, and would be taken three times a week by family.

However this too soon became confusing and the friends she used to know became strangers. Three days dropped to two, then one, and now she is unable to go anywhere but the high care section of her facility.

Just like Greta’s family, Maree has also been affected by the disease, which drives her to do the work that she does.

“My own father lived with dementia and my hope is that no other family has to go through what we went through, in the absence of support.”

According to her, if researchers had the funds to develop new interventions there could be up to a one third decrease in the amount of people with dementia by 2050, something Alzheimer’s Australia is slowing working towards.

For Greta, while the disease has all but taken hold there does seem to still be some of her old self hanging on.  She is in relatively good health and while she can only put a few words together she often taps her foot to the bagpipes and smiles when given her favorite food – cake!