Radio Speech

Andy Wallace

21/10/14

Speech For the Radio

Today I was having coffee with my friends and some funny stories were being told about our mothers. We all have a funny story to tell, don't we?. I was laughing when one friend recalled the time when his mum embarrassed him while getting petrol in a busy garage when suddenly she loudly exclaimed with joy that they stocked his favourite sweets while pointing at the condoms on the shelf unknowing of what they were. I noticed one of my friend had not been laughing and when I ask if she was ok. She replied, my mum is not my mother anymore. What do you mean I asked. My mother no longer knows me she is a unknowing empty shell, she has Dementia I have had to put her in a home. I was shocked to hear this I had known her mother well a

  Can you imagine that poor woman who lovingly brought up my friend has been left in the care of others confused and alone. My friend’s mother had been diagnosed with Dementia last year and they were finding it increasingly harder and harder to cope, so they were left with no choice but to put her in to care.

        The population in the UK is growing larger and larger as we are living longer In fact we are living ten year longer than we were in the seventies. Our life expectancy is well into our eighties now thanks to the great advances in medical care. My father would be with me today if he had lived in these times and had not been taken from his wife and family aged just 52 with heart disease.

        But today though it is not heart disease or cancer that takes our friend’s and loved ones but metal health conditions like Dementia. What is this guy on about your thinking Dementia is not a killer but it is.

This debilitating illness is a killer. It takes life future and past leaving just an empty soul unknowing of the good times and love you once shared with them together.

        This year Dementia will cost the UK economy £23 billion. Yes, £23 billion! That's more than cancer and heart disease combined. This life taking condition effects 830 thousand people in the UK and 23 million of our UK population have a close friend or family member affected by Dementia.  That's is over half the adult UK population so why do we know so little about it and what is being done to stop the growing number of empty souls who once knew so much about us and now no longer even recognise our face.