When Patrick Dare was called into his first-ever HR review at the age of 54, he finally had to be honest with himself.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019d had a high-level career in IT sales for the last 35 years, and I\u2019d never had any issues with my performance until then,\u201d Dare told news.com.au<\/p>\n
\u201cFor maybe a year prior, I\u2019d been experiencing some mood changes \u2013 nothing major, just getting a little bit cranky,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was worse in the evenings, I\u2019d be shouting at my partner, Tanya, I\u2019d be shouting at the dogs \u2013 just out-of-character anger. Then, it progressed to paranoia: I became convinced people were talking about me behind my back at work.\u201d<\/p>\n
It culminated with the outburst that landed the usually mild-mannered Dare in performance management, when he swore at a few people in his service team.<\/p>\n
\u201cPeople at work knew it wasn\u2019t me and so did I,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Patrick Dare\u2019s 35 years of working in IT was upended after an outburst that landed him in front of HR. Patrick Dare\/Facebook<\/p>\n
Initially the Queensland resident, who had been through a devastating bout of depression in 2006, worried that his symptoms might be related to another mental health episode.<\/p>\n
After a suite of tests, however, Dare was diagnosed with frontal lobe dementia \u2013 also known as frontotemporal dementia (FTD) \u2013 which is a type more commonly diagnosed in people under the age of 65.<\/p>\n
Dare said before the diagnosis, his previous understanding of dementia was that it mostly centred on memory loss.<\/p>\n
This is a common misconception, said Associate Professor Rowena Mobbs, one of Australia\u2019s leading concussion and dementia physicians.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Mobbs \u2013 who is throwing her support behind news.com.au and The Australian\u2019s Think Again campaign \u2013 said certain conditions can impact the cognitive networks in the brain that influence behaviour, something experts refer to as Behavioural and Psychological Symptoms in Dementia, or BPSD.<\/p>\n
\u201cBPSD is a significant cause of complications, including falls, hospitalisations, delirium, and over medication,\u201d Mobbs said.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf detected early, many of these issues can be prevented, allowing individuals to live better in the community and providing much relief to their loved ones.\u201d<\/p>\n
More than 433,000 Australians are currently living with dementia with the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare (AIHW) predicting this number to rise to one million by 2065.<\/p>\n
MRI scans of the brain. Elena Abduramanova \u2013 stock.adobe<\/p>\n
About 29,000 people aged under 65 are currently living with younger onset dementia, with that number predicted to rise by 41 per cent to 41,000 people by 2054, according to figures from Dementia Australia and the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare (AIHW).<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s easy to get bogged down in the numbers, but that means that for the next 30 years, there\u2019s going to be a new diagnosis of younger onset dementia every single day in this country,\u201d dementia expert Tim England from YOD Reflections said.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s going to impact not only an individual, but their entire family, every single day for the next 30 years at the current rate.\u201d<\/p>\n
It\u2019s why services such as YOD Reflections \u2013 a support service specifically for people living with younger onset dementia \u2013 are so crucial, England said, because the needs of someone living with younger onset dementia can differ greatly than someone diagnosed in their seventies or eighties.<\/p>\n
\u201cBPSD is a significant cause of complications, including falls, hospitalisations, delirium, and over medication,\u201d Mobbs said. The Jackson Laboratory \/ SWNS<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve got a client who is 32, with a young family,\u201d England said.<\/p>\n
\u201cFor a lot of our clients, they\u2019re grappling with a diagnosis while still trying to pay a mortgage, raise kids, make the school bus run. It\u2019s a different set of considerations and it necessitates support for the entire family as well.\u201d<\/p>\n
England compares the current systemic support for dementia patients with those that exist for breast cancer patients.<\/p>\n
\u201cGod forbid you get a diagnosis of breast cancer,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat happens after diagnosis? In many cases, you have someone called a breast cancer nurse navigator who is assigned to you straight away to start getting things done, who can put you in touch with various supports and help navigate the services and requirements,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
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\u201cThat doesn\u2019t happen with dementia. A lot of people are simply handed a diagnosis, then told to get their affairs in order. It can be very isolating.\u201d<\/p>\n
For Dare, who received his diagnosis in 2019, it was both a shock and a bittersweet relief.<\/p>\n
\u201cTo be honest, it was a breath of fresh air, because it explained everything,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was as though I\u2019d lost my filter, and once I knew what was going on, I could work harder on correcting things. Before my diagnosis I\u2019d say the wrong thing, or something inappropriate or rude, and I wouldn\u2019t care.<\/p>\n
\u201cNow, I realise, and I can catch myself. When I yell at my partner, like I did the other night, I apologise very quickly.\u201d<\/p>\n
Dare with his partner Tanya. Patrick Dare\/Facebook<\/p>\n
Dare was able to continue working up until 2021, at which point the finer details of his job became too overwhelming and he resigned. He said initially the loss of the career identity that he\u2019d had for more than half his life hit him harder than the initial diagnosis.<\/p>\n
\u201cI really withdrew in 2021 and early 2022,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cI just did not want to engage, I was worried about saying the wrong thing. Then, I realised I\u2019d done enough wallowing. I decided to get out in front of people and talk to as many people as I can about this disease.\u201d<\/p>\n
Now a member of Dementia Australia\u2019s Advisory Committee, Dare is committed to raising awareness of the fact that people with younger-onset dementia can live fulfilling, independent lives with the right support and planning in place.<\/p>\n
\u201cI describe my brain as a duck on the surface of the water,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt looks normal enough sailing along, but you can\u2019t see how furiously the legs are paddling underneath.\u201d<\/p>\n
Dare said he\u2019s now learnt to manage his symptoms by being more realistic about what he can do.<\/p>\n
\u201cI now regulate myself,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t drive a car in the afternoons. I don\u2019t put myself in positions of being out late at night or anything like that, because I just can\u2019t handle it.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m very much aware now of what I do, and while there are times I still can\u2019t stop myself from doing some things, and I get some looks, I\u2019m better at acknowledging and explaining.\u201d<\/p>\n
And as for his old workmates \u2013 despite the incidents at work, there\u2019s definitely no hard feelings.<\/p>\n
\u201cI still catch up for coffee with people I used to work with,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey\u2019ll have a chat and a laugh. They jokingly accuse me of playing \u2018the dementia card\u2019 when we\u2019re together.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"When Patrick Dare was called into his first-ever HR review at the age of 54, he finally had…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":243846,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[4740,14400,632,210,65,9480,517,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-243845","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mental-health","8":"tag-australia","9":"tag-brains","10":"tag-dementia","11":"tag-health","12":"tag-information-technology","13":"tag-mens-health","14":"tag-mental-health","15":"tag-united-states","16":"tag-unitedstates","17":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115242255172946750","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/243845","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=243845"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/243845\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/243846"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=243845"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=243845"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=243845"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}