Demented!

I have noticed there is currently a radio and television campaign about Dementia. I kind of know what Dementia is, having some personal experience of a family member who suffered from it. Nowadays it has a proper definition:

Dementia is a syndrome (a group of related symptoms) that is associated with an ongoing decline of the brain and its abilities

This encompasses all sorts of diseases and conditions such as Alzheimer's disease. Whereas in years gone by it just meant: being old and a bit mental.

One of my Grans had Dementia. She was as mad as a bag of snakes. But she was a lovely lady and even as a youngster of 5-10 I could see that there was a normal person with a normal perception trapped in a mind which obscured the outside world with 'smoke and mirrors'. Thinking back now I wonder what frustrated her more, was it the delusions which made her act in the way she did, or was it the moments of clarity in which she realised that her condition robbed her of the real world around her and the cognition to interact normally with it?

The aforementioned adverts use the slogan: I have dementia. I also have a life.

Two things popped into my head after listening to/watching these adverts. If the people in these adverts are real and not actors, they have real Dementia. So how fucked up will it be for them when they are sitting at home one night, minding their own business and suddenly, their own face pops up on the screen, telling themselves they have Dementia? Still, at least the next day they'll have forgotten all about it. A constant cycle of surprise! Also I thought with such a serious and debilitating disease, they could inject a little humour into the campaign by changing the slogan to:

I have Dementia. I also have a bag full of magic Marbles and did I ever tell you about the time that I paddled to the moon in a canoe made of Pedigree Chum?