One of the questions we get asked is why we started Dementia Marathon?
After all, we’re very small - only the two of us - and each of us already has plenty to do.
There are big organisations already set up to take care of dementia matters - Dementia Australia has branches all over Australia, developed to educate and support people diagnosed with dementia and their families. The Wicking Institute, part of our University of Tasmania, is an academic organisation set up for clinical research.
So why do we bother?
Our Big Why
A big reason is that we’ve both come in personal contact with friends and family diagnosed with this chronic condition. And this has affected us at a deep level.
Stigma. When we heard about these diagnoses, Lewy Body Dementia (LBD), Fronto-Temporal Dementia (FTD), we realised that the label ‘dementia’ was very stigmatising.
If you doubt this, just think about ‘normal’ reactions to three different but similar cases: how do you feel when
- you hear that your neighbour has cancer?
- you hear that your neighbour has a thyroid condition?
- you hear that your neighbour has dementia?
We wanted to help remove the stigma: we wanted to normalise dementia and its associated behaviours whilst also educating those affected to understand more about the condition and what can be done to prevent it.
We also wanted to advocate for a better quality of life for those affected - and we realised that this was everyone. Chronic health conditions affect the whole community in multiple ways.
While we may not all have dementia, we are all affected. As time passes, we hear from more and more friends who have a family member showing symptoms of dementia or who know someone else in that situation.
Marathon. We personally have never run a marathon and at this stage of life, we wouldn’t expect to.
However, running in a marathon is a familiar image that calls to mind a need for training, a need for endurance and a need for support - all qualities needed to address any chronic health condition.
And, given that dementia is a chronic condition/syndrome that develops over time, and that calls for great resilience in both those affected and those who have the care of them, we felt it made sense to call our contribution, Dementia Marathon.
We want to support you in developing individual and collective resilience. We want to support you in optimising the health of your brain. And we want to make it easier for you to care for others who may have dementia.
Community. The Covid pandemic has made popular in Australia the phrase, We’re all in this together. Whether or not this is true in a larger sense, facing a marathon becomes a lot easier when you have a community around you for support.
We see a need for an active community of support that we can all be part of. We want to see this happen.
Please Join Us
Please consider subscribing to our free newsletter.
We would love to have you join our Marathon Run. The more of us there are, the more difference we can make. Here's the link to join.
Onward and upward,
Justus and Kerry