When children develop dementia

Older people aren’t the only ones to have their lives shortened by dementia. It’s little discussed but in Australia childhood dementia takes more lives than childhood cancer. For young people with one of several rare genetic diseases that affect the brain, the prospects are bleak – and the toll on parents is enormous.

Here, journalist Bianca Nogrady, writing in The Guardian, explores the fears and the hopes of families dealing with the condition.

You mean there’s nothing?’ The families fighting for their children with dementia

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