"JOURNEY OF NO RETURN"

"Each week more than a thousand Australians are delivered the cruel diagnosis: they have dementia - incurable, untreatable, terminal. It kills slowly. Sufferers are left perplexed and helpless as it gnaws away at brain function, robbing them of simple memory and living skills. Loved ones watch it suck the vitality out of the feisty mother or wisecracking husband they once knew, leaving a shell behind. Almost a century to the day since Alzheimer's disease was first documented, waves of dementia roll through the generations. About 200,000 Australians are sufferers now; by 2050 the number is expected to exceed 700,000. Within a decade, dementia will be Australia's number one disability. The national dementia bill is now $6 billion a year and rising."source:abc.net.au