A dad-of-four was diagnosed with young-onset dementia after suffering with memory problems for 20 years.
Roughly 900,000 people in the UK have dementia, with more than 42,000 of those having young-onset dementia, which is when a person develops the condition before the age of 65. New research from the Alzheimer's Society found 27% of people with dementia in the North West of England waited more than two years between noticing symptoms and getting a diagnosis, in large part because they assumed symptoms were a sign of aging.
Southport man Phil Burdekin, 63, kept forgetting appointments and would miss turnings while driving lorries, mistakes easy to dismiss as stress-related. But over two decades, the symptoms got worse. Phil, from Ainsdale, said: "I was getting worried - I didn't know what it was, and then my wife got fed up of me asking the same questions again and again, so she said I'd better go to the doctor."
