I need to talk about a personal battle that I know many of you are also fighting in silence.

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It's about my mother, Joy.

Most of you know her as a former international vaudevillian, a trick ice skater, and a Volunteer of the Year Award winner for her local NSW Hunter region community of Maitland. She was the woman who spread love and never had a bad word to say about anyone.

Today, at 93, she is a shell of that woman.

Dementia is a slow, insidious thief.

At first, with mum, it was just the small things.

Some days she would forget to eat, she would sleep most of the day and her short-term memory was slipping.

But now, the person she was, is being robbed from us week by week.

Watching her drop to 43 kilos was hard, but watching her demeanour change has been harder.

There are days when my mother, a woman who lived to champion the downtrodden, now sometimes becomes erratic and venomous. She says things that are cruel - traits she never before possessed. Her new-found acid tongue can be hurtful and at times irreverent.

The heartbreak is that in her lucid moments, she points to her head and says, "I've lost it," and has a little chuckle.

But if she could see herself now, she would be mortified.

Our family isn't alone in this. Dementia is now the leading cause of death for women in Australia, and the statistics in our state are a sobering reminder of the "grey tsunami" we face.

There are currently more than 164,000 people living with dementia in NSW alone.

By 2050, that number is projected to soar to nearly 300,000.

In regional areas like ours, the impact is felt even more acutely as families struggle to find specialised care close to home.

For my mother, her 'isolation' as a result of her dementia is compounded by her profound deafness. She loses her hearing aids constantly, making conversation with other nursing home residents impossible.

She chooses to isolate, preferring the flickers of the television and the subtitles that are her only remaining bridge to the world.

During visits it is easier to communicate through a magnetic drawing board.

Dementia is a trauma that ripples through generations. It affects my brother, our children, and our grandchildren.

Every time mum asks when my father, who passed in 2002, is coming to visit, or when her own parents are coming to take her home, a little piece of us breaks.

At the end of most visits, she weeps. And as I walk away, I carry that grief with me, knowing that while her body is still here, the gregarious woman who once graced international stages has already left us.

If you are navigating this journey with a loved one, please know I see you. It is a lonely road, but it is one we are walking together.

National Dementia Helpline 1800 100 500

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