What we get wrong about dementia, with Wendy Mitchell

There are 50million people living with dementia worldwide. By 2050, it’s likely to rise to 152 million. But how much do you know about dementia? When it’s a disease so rapidly on the rise, why aren’t we talking more about it?

 

Wendy Mitchell is a former NHS worker who was diagnosed with young-onset dementia at the age of 58. She’s written two books: Somebody I Used To Know and What I Wish People Knew About Dementia

 

We talk about why dementia is so much more than memory loss; how the arts often falls back on stereotypes when featuring characters with dementia; and how Wendy thinks a diagnosis of dementia could be better broken by doctors - it’s not the end of life, she says, it’s the beginning of a different one.

 

Buy What I Wish People Knew About Dementia, by Wendy Mitchell

Follow Wendy on Twitter @WendyPMitchell 

 

Hosted & Exec Produced by Pandora Sykes

Production by Joel Grove