Australian of the Year – Henry Brodaty
Psychogeriatrician Henry Brodaty, who was awarded an OA by his country in 2000, has been named Australian of the Year.
Henry Brodaty giving his acceptance address
In a moving acceptance address, Henry told the audience at the awards ceremony: ” I was a one-year-old arriving in this wonderful country with my Holocaust survivor parents. This makes this a very poignant and extraordinary award for me, especially in the aftermath of the Bondi massacre.
I’m very grateful. I would like to dedicate this to all of us who are older, and all of us who hopefully will get older, and especially to those affected by dementia and their families, and especially to my father, who died with dementia, age 59 and to my mother, who was his carer.
It was his illness, it was his gift to me that led me to co-founding and eventually leading Alzheimer’s associations, both in New South Wales and in Australia, and later, Alzheimer’s Disease International.”
Henry Brodaty said that the original four countries have grown to over 100 and that dementia is a national health priority, with over 430,000 Australians and over a million family carers being touched by dementia, with direct and indirect costs totalling over $18 billion.
He said: “By mid-century, these numbers will double, because we’re getting older. The Centre for Healthy Brain Ageing has a vision to live our life with good cognitive health, throughout our full lifespan.”
Well, yes, almost half the cost of dementia is caused by preventable factors that we can modify in our lifestyle.
Our randomised control trial of an intensive online Lifestyle coaching programme had the best results yet in the world in maintaining cognition. We did a cost-benefit analysis. The programme paid for itself in reducing health costs. We designed this a decade ago. We can do a lot better. I want to say that people think more about their hair than what’s underneath. We should treasure our brains just as we have our hearts.”
He said that Australians would benefit from a National Healthy Brain promotion programme, saying ‘We need the slip slop slap of brain health, and this needs to be a whole of life approach’.
He added: “As well as prevention, there are new drugs for Alzheimer’s, new diagnostic tests, more information about risk factors, more support for carers, and a new philosophy now of living positively with dementia for many years through rehabilitation after a diagnosis.
Of course, there’s a reality in the sadness of living with dementia. I experienced that and the challenge of providing care and services.
We don’t have a dementia navigator programme as we do for breast cancer in Australia.”
Someone who knows his work told the event by video: “When we talk about good care for people with dementia, we have to sort of expand the way we understand it. Dementia doesn’t just impact one person, it impacts an entire community. Professor Brodaty has really changed the way we care for people and their families living with dementia. He allows for every single person, whether it’s the person with the diagnosis or whether it’s the person supporting them.”
Another said: “He has that human care factor, and he has so much empathy. One of Henry’s accomplishments is conducting the world’s most successful dementia-delay trial. It’s called maintain your brain. I believe in my heart that one day we will find the way to prevent this, and that’s thanks to leaders like Henry, we always find the edge of our knowledge and we dare to explore beyond.”
In a video, Henry Brodaty said: “We had a programme which was all delivered online. Half the group got coaching and physical activity, brain training, nutrition and depression and anxiety treatment. The other half got information. Both groups improved, but the coached group improved almost three times as much. So this was the biggest trial in the world. We think this has got legs. This is something that could be rolled out nationally. If we exercise every day, if we eat a Mediterranean-style diet, or the principles of that, if we keep our mind active, we keep socially active. There’s so much we can do to reduce the numbers of people with dementia.”
