A dementia discussion.

Diseases in general are cruel. Hell, even the word word "disease" itself is unpleasant, though maybe that's the point. Whether the affliction is physical or neurological, it is never a laughing matter. But diseases just don't get any more devastating than dementia, in any form, be it frontotemporal lobe dementia, Lewy body dementia or, of course, Alzheimer's disease.

This September is Dementia Awareness Month in Australia. Dementia is now the second leading cause of death in Australia after suicide, and in their final years two of my grandparents had it. For several reasons I can't discuss here what I saw of their cases but mark my words, you really can't un-see things like that, especially as a relative. And I don't want to imagine how much worse it would've been in their shoes then. I'm also somewhat glad my other grandparents didn't live to see them reach that state.

But I realise what a delicate and heavy issue this would be, even without my own feelings. Nearly all medical conditions still carry a stigma, socially and sometimes even clinically, and it is up to us, especially medical experts and celebrities, to work to erase that. In the case of dementia, that means not attributing senile or erratic behaviour always to age, and compassionately encouraging those with it to remain socially active for as long as possible (though that should ultimately be a personal choice). We also must give far more attention to early-onset dementia (affecting people under 65) and to the damaging neurological effects of drugs and alcohol.

More support is also needed for carers and relatives of people with dementia who, as I said before, experience (different) pain of their own from their experiences. They need, and richly deserve, support themselves, and any way of finding national funding and resources for this also is worth it.

Ronald Reagan, Margaret Thatcher, Hazel Hawke, Robin Williams (who was diagnosed just before his suicide with Lewy body dementia) and most recently Gene Wilder and Charmian Carr are among the notable names who have developed and/or succumbed to dementia in our time. And their struggles all went some way in increasing awareness. There have also been several successful contemporary artistic depictions of it,, most notably for me Lisa Genova's remarkable 2009 novel Still Alice, and its brilliant 2014 film adaptation, for which Julianne Moore won an Oscar.

But there's a reason it is not stopping there: because it must not. Health may be a government portfolio, but it was first, and remains, something that far transcends both left- and right-wing politics. It is in the centre: something that has and will always affect us all. But for dementia in, like diseases in general, we must find a cure. And I know we can.