MARC FENNELL: What happens
when you take a group of opinionated Australians,
one hot-button topic close to their hearts...
How about you just shut your face? No, we've got to go there.
They're called love handles for a reason.
(LAUGHTER)
..throw in three courses...
How is that OK? They're using their voice...
Wait, wait, wait. Wow.
..too much information.
You had to look fuckable. You often get distracted during sex.
..and me, I'm Marc Fennell,
and this is Tell Me What You Really Think.
Australia, you're getting old.
As a population, we are ageing like never before, and fast.
But you know what? Old ain't what it used to be.
This week, the seniors doing things differently.
I am amazed at some of the weights that I'm lifting now.
Whether it's fighting to be fit
or facing and embracing the challenges of a new age.
Hey, Google, help me. Am I getting worse?
GOOGLE ASSISTANT: "You're still managing
"so much better than others expect you to."
I honestly believe that technology is the future for us.
Plus, I will be diving head first
into the weird and wild world of longevity science.
MAN: Currently we're measuring Marc's muscle mass
and his fat mass.
We've got some great news and some to-work-on news.
Hey. Nice to see you.
Great to see you. Would you prefer handshake or hug?
I want a hug. Fine. Hug it is.
Joining me tonight, sexologist Dr Linda Kirkman...
Can I pat her?
Hello. How are you? Poodle or cavoodle?
Spoodle. Spoodle.
..dementia advocate Gwenda Darling...
Would you like a quiche?
I'm vegetarian. Vegetarian.
..drag performer Stan Munro...
..said, "What are you doing back there?"
(LAUGHTER)
I've been starving. I'm so into this.
..artist Lindy Lee...
That's what I feel right now. (LAUGHS)
..and geriatrician Dr John Ward.
You're fairly intimidating, Marc. Intimidating?!
I just served you food!
So, we can start? Yeah, yeah. Go, go. Eat, eat.
So, thank you all for being here.
I hate to tell you this,
but old people, apparently, are to blame for everything.
Specifically, baby boomers are, according to the headlines,
responsible for the housing crisis, the high cost of education,
the high cost of medicine, climate crisis,
cost-of-living crisis, and, of course,
the continued popularity of Michael Buble.
(LAUGHTER)
Which of those things
would you like to personally accept responsibility for?
Definitely not Michael Buble. Oh, OK.
Will one of you accept Buble?
Are you going to accept Buble? Yes.
You like Buble? Yes.
There you go. It's Stan's problem, then?
One of my sons said to me at Christmas, "OK, boomer."
And I said to him, "Well, it's not my fault.
"I never had any money to start with."
I mean, I've kept the economy going so you can't blame me.
I accept no responsibility.
I may be a Karen, but I'm not a boomer in the sense that...
So, when people say terms like "OK, boomer,"
what goes through your head, how do you feel?
Oh, well, it's a put-down, isn't it?
It's not only an age statement,
it's a, "You're the scourge of society."
My PhD thesis, I interviewed baby boomers.
I called it Baby Boomers In Friends-With-Benefits Relationships.
And that was started in 2009.
And baby boomer wasn't a slur then,
and now it really is.
Initially, way back when, it was quite a flattering term,
but we've transitioned to this is an insult.
Trouble is, for some people it's justified too,
with the greedy people who had all the opportunities
and then just kept it to themselves.
All those rich middle-class people. Well, yeah. OK.
I mean, I think I probably own that space.
One thing I'd like to say is baby boomers were born
from parents who had experienced war, deprivation.
So, the moment any sense of prosperity came on,
um, of course people were going to buy houses
because it was affordable.
So, that's a kind of a natural thing.
But we also had to contend with misogyny,
ah, racism,
um, homophobia.
So, my generation, I think, have fought hard for inclusiveness.
What this current generation that's coming up is, you know,
being addicted to social media, etc, etc.
I mean, it's going to have its own problems.
All I'm saying, to be even-handed,
is that we all come from certain conditions
and we grow in particular ways.
So, John, that big list of things that baby boomers get blamed for,
is it fair?
I wouldn't necessarily blame baby boomers.
I think, uh, a bit like Lindy Lee,
I think it's the context in which people were raised.
I think it's unregulated capitalism.
So, somehow, we became very selfish and greedy.
But I think it's more the system that people grew up in
rather than any particular group of people.
So, talk to me about ageism.
How well are we treating our older people in Australia?
Appallingly. As a nation, we are letting older people down.
When I'm on the phone,
and I might be talking to an operator or something like that,
when they know your age, they immediately go into that...
(INFANTALISING TONE) "Well, what can I help you with, dear?
"What's wrong, dear?
"Oh, do have a nice day."
And I think, "Oh, for fuck's sake, you know, get over it."
"How are we today?" Yeah...
"How are WE today?"
"How are we?" And, "How are you feeling?"
"What are you going to do for the rest of the day?"
Well, I'm going for a fucking walk around the block.
What are you doing? (LAUGHS)
It really shits me when they assume
because I've got grey hair
that I'm technologically incompetent.
And I've been using computers since before most of them were born.
We're treated like two-year-olds, you know?
Um, I just fight against ageism all the time.
I wear what I like, I do what I like.
But a lot of people aren't empowered enough to do that.
They've been oppressed all their lives.
Can I ask you about your mate down there?
Introduce me to your friend over here.
Ms Redleigh? Yeah.
She's a trained assistance dog.
And because of my variant of dementia...
I have behaviour-variant frontotemporal dementia
so get excited.
I may take my clothes off at any minute.
I may just abuse the crap out of you because you give me the shits.
OK. How am I doing so far?
Well, I don't know anything about you.
I've never heard of you before. Probably for the best.
So, you're OK. You're just... You're quite a good-looking fella.
But you'll do.
I... I really have lost my social filter.
Yeah. And I try, I try very hard.
But when I get agitated or distressed,
Redleigh's straight on it.
If I started telling you to get fucked right now and became...
she's immediately there and she keeps me functioning.
John, do you reckon
you've ever been on the receiving end of ageism?
No, I don't think so.
But, then, I'm in a very privileged position.
But I think we could do an awful lot
to make our communities more age-friendly.
And if it was obvious to older people that,
um, the community, the government - at all three levels -
was taking the needs of older people seriously,
that would do a lot to get rid of ageism.
Are older women treated differently to older men?
Yes. How so?
Actually, older women are still expected to do things.
They're seen as useless in a physical sense,
as in, they can't lift up a table and chairs or do things like that,
but I think they're also expected to continue caring,
continue in their caring roles.
Whereas older men tend to be thrown on the scrapheap.
You know, they really...
If you can't mow the lawns anymore, what good are you?
You're not going to work and bring in the dollar.
You're not mowing the lawns. What can you do?
Women do 'older age' much better than men.
And the reason is that their social role continues
because they've always been daughters, mothers,
sisters, friends.
They have more friends, whereas men define themselves
much more by their occupation or their profession.
And when that's no longer there,
they don't then have another social role to easily fall into.
But it's not that other people think they're useless.
They think... It's that self... "Well, I think I'm useless."
And if their sense of self isn't tied to physical capacity,
sexual prowess,
earning a living, those kind of roles,
then that's when they chuck themselves on the scrapheap
as much as someone else chucking them on the scrapheap.
I have to go there. They can still have sexual prowess.
If they don't, we can help them.
Well, that's a whole idea...
No, we've got to go there because that's what we've got.
I'm a sex therapist. I go there a lot.
Let's talk about sex. Yeah, absolutely.
STAN: What's that? Sex?
Yes. Are you missing out?
Oh, big time. I haven't been laid for about 15 years.
And how do you feel about that? Shocking. Dreadful.
Go in to residential care. You'll be right.
(LAUGHS)
But we can't talk about it. We've got to pretend it doesn't.
There's a reaction in other generations
when you bring up the concept
of people over the age of 70 having sex.
Oh, the ick factor. Yeah. Why?
Why does that happen, do you think?
Because we were so secretive. We were taught...
We were brought up not to talk about it.
Another thing to blame baby boomers on. It's your own fault.
But... That's right. (LAUGHS)
But they forget we were the liberated generation as well.
We burnt our bras. Yeah.
We had sex in public places.
So, Linda, you are a sex therapist.
When older people come to you,
what are the sorts of problems they're presenting with?
What do they want help with?
The mismatched libido is the most hot topic, always.
And so, what sort of advice do you give?
Like, are there practical tips
that you find yourself giving over and over again for older clients?
Know what you want. Ask for what you want.
Be prepared to call a boundary.
I don't think people know what they like.
And because there's a fairly standard sexual script,
particularly the heteronormative sexual script,
there's the... there might be kissing,
maybe some erogenous-zone touching, perhaps some oral sex.
Penis in vagina intercourse.
The guy comes. It's all over, red rover.
Um, and quite often, women will fake it, fake an orgasm,
because they're expected to have an orgasm.
And if they say that they haven't, there's conflict as a result.
So, really chucking out the script and going, "Hey, what do you like?
"How do you know what you like? Let's explore and find out."
Play, pleasure, curiosity.
Gwenda, how have your sexual preferences changed
since you've got a diagnosis for dementia?
I've become pansexual.
I accept everybody for who they are. I'll go with anybody.
Basically... If it had a pulse.
No, it didn't even have to have a pulse.
I can tell you, cucumbers are better than men.
(LAUGHS) STAN: Now you tell me.
(LAUGHTER)
But then I went through a different stage.
I changed from being a heterosexual woman to being pansexual.
But about three years ago I became asexual.
Oh, OK.
Here I am advocating for the rights of older people
to have sexual relationships, but I've actually lost all interest.
I did say to one of my sons, "They'd have to be pretty good now.
"With all my wrinkles, it'd have to be in the dark."
He said, "You forget that everybody who'd could come near you
"would be the same way."
But, seriously, we have to stop this argument
that people with dementia don't have capacity.
And this is where, in residential care,
there's a huge responsibility on providers
because they have to keep me safe,
but they also have a duty to allow me to meet my needs.
And this is where Bluetooth penis sheaths,
Bluetooth vibrators, come into their own.
Who's controlling the other end of the Bluetooth?
Well, it can actually be staff. It can actually be a volunteer.
It can actually be a paid sex worker
who's giving you a hug while they're doing it.
We can get paid sex workers into residential care.
On the gay scene there is, and always has been, ageism.
Once you reach a certain age, you might as well be dead, really.
I would like someone to cuddle up to and things like that, you know.
Well, who doesn't need a cuddle?
Well, that kind of raises an interesting kind of point.
At the chapter of lives that you're in at the moment,
how much of it is about intimacy and connection
and how much of it is about pleasure?
I think it's much more about relationships
and that shared intimacy.
Um, I think if you've had a close relationship with someone
for a long time,
that intimacy continues.
It may not be terribly physical, but, you know,
it's a very beautiful thing to do at the end of the day,
to just be together. Um, Stan...
I was about to say that I've met a lot of, uh,
straight married men
that have hidden in the closet for years,
and they always say...
And I say to them, "Well, why did you get married?"
And they said, "Because I had to."
Yeah, I've had, in relation to my clients,
I've worked with people who've been in that experience,
who've been bi all their lives
and felt obliged to shut it down for all kinds of reasons.
And then when they're free to express themselves, it's like,
it's like going through another adolescence
except you're in your 60s.
Not that long ago,
reaching your 60s meant entering the final chapter of life.
But baby boomers are flipping that script.
Let's wind back to the birth of this generation
from 1946 to 1964.
Australia celebrated the end of World War II
with an unprecedented baby bonanza.
At the time,
life expectancy was around 66 for men and 71 for women.
Today, those figures sit at 81 for men and 85 for women.
Couple that with the fact that
the baby boom has well and truly busted,
and you have got yourself an ageing population.
In 1950, around 8% of Australians were over 65.
By next year it will be 22%.
This year, even the youngest boomer turns 61.
Here's the other thing,
baby boomers aren't just living longer,
they're working longer too.
In the past two decades,
the average age of retirement has gone from around 57 to 65,
and some of them don't want to retire at all.
John, are you still working? Yes, I'm semi-retired,
but I'm still working as a geriatrician.
Medically speaking, is there a right age to retire?
Uh, probably well before my age.
Probably, I should have retired.
Um, no, I think you, um, you go on until you feel you've had enough.
When it no longer gives you satisfaction,
that's probably the age to retire.
But retiring requires a decision, Marc, that's the problem.
Right. Why is that a problem?
Um, maybe I'm not very good at decisions,
but eventually, you know, I feel I'll know there's a time.
So, Stan, you're 84, yes? I'm 84, yes.
Are you still working?
I'm still doing a show here, there and everywhere,
and it's called Vintage Drag In Mint Condition.
(LAUGHS)
And it involves me on stage, and I'm interviewed on stage,
and there's a big screen behind me,
and, um, it shows pictures and movies
that I've had the, you know, the luck to appear.
(DISCO MUSIC)
(STAN SINGS) # Turn Around.
# Stand up like a man and look me in the eye
# Turn around... #
But jobs are very thin on the ground at the moment.
Lindy, what does a good retirement look like to you?
Um, that's a ridiculous question to ask an artist.
An artist just doesn't retire. OK.
Well, because it's your vocation.
You have to be really stupid to be an artist.
It's the only thing you want to do with your life.
You are compelled. It's a compulsion.
So, I'm afraid that's just that, um...
Retirement, um, I think I've said, you know,
like, I'm 71, or 71 in a minute.
(LAUGHS) No-one's counting. It's fine.
(LAUGHS) But I just feel as if I've started.
Yeah, it's interesting because you've just unveiled
this sculpture that is, I think,
it's one of the most expensive, elaborate sculptures
in Australian history.
And I've heard you say that it was just your apprenticeship.
Why did you say that?
Because it takes a long time for ideas to bake,
if you're an artist.
I think you have to take a long apprenticeship to your own humanity
and a long apprenticeship to being open to the world.
And then, with a bit of luck,
and you're practising all the time doing all of this,
then you're ready to really start making stuff.
That's what I feel right now.
MAN: OK, so this is a measure of your basal metabolic rate.
I become a human lab rat
to see just how badly my body is ageing.
And we're using this to get an idea of stroke risk.
And we explore the bleeding edge of longevity science.
Right here.
I think it's a useless, very selfish experiment
this guy's doing.
# Happy birthday, dear Eileen
# Happy birthday to you. #
The number of Australians living to 100
has skyrocketed in recent decades.
# I wish a wish come true
# I wish a wish the same for you. #
But making it to 110 like Eileen Kramer,
well, that remains extremely rare.
I don't mind being called 110.
I just don't like the general idea of oldness.
Eileen is a renowned dancer who began her career in 1940
with one of Australia's very first modern dance companies,
and today she is what statisticians call
a super-centenarian.
(LAUGHTER) Here we go.
(MAN READS) "Eileen, Eileen, Come on, Eileen...
Come on, Eileen.
"Now 110 and our forever dancing queen.
"To Her Royal Highness the Queen of...#
It takes a long time to grow up.
Most people don't live long enough.
Well, that could all change thanks to a rapidly growing industry
that wants to cheat death.
Right here.
We're at this special moment in time.
We have this opportunity to build an existence
that is actually much more expansive and interesting
than anything we can imagine.
Bryan Johnson is the poster boy slash middle-aged man
of the longevity movement,
or as he sometimes likes to call it, the Don't Die movement.
The future is better than we are.
This 48-year-old reportedly spends 2 million USD a year
to effectively become an 18-year-old again.
Yes, you might have heard of him.
He's the guy that injected a litre of his 17-year-old son's blood
into himself
and then gave a litre of his own blood to his father.
And now he claims that he has the erections of a teenager.
He might be a little crazy,
but he's far from alone in the longevity trade...
..which is how you find this freshly 40-year-old TV presenter
here at a longevity clinic in Sydney.
I've come to see this man, Dr Adam Brown,
who is going to carry out a bit of an investigation
into the state of my decrepit ageing body.
We take a proactive approach to health care
rather than a sort of whack-a-mole approach.
Right. Well, I'm in your hands.
(LAUGHS) Where do you want to start?
I suppose the essence of the clinic
is we want to get as much bio data as possible.
And that means blood tests.
Lots of them.
(LAUGHS) That's an insane amount of blood.
Then come the ultrasounds.
And we're using this to get an idea of stroke risk.
How's it look? Your arteries are looking excellent.
Why, thank you.
Glucose monitors.
A VO2 max fitness test.
So, VO2 max is massively associated with longevity.
Sure, unless it kills you first.
How was that? Good.
Then there's the DEXA scan.
And currently we're measuring Marc's muscle mass and his fat mass.
Whatever this is.
OK, so this is a measure of your basal metabolic rate.
Strength test. You're going well.
(GROANS) Oh, OK.
Let's go. Squeeze, squeeze, squeeze, and drop.
Great depth. Keep that range. 24.
And lots of questions.
So, another thing we picked up on your preliminary assessment was,
um, your sleep duration. (LAUGHS) Yes.
Tell me about that.
Uh, I have never been much of a sleeper.
Uh, I tend to do, on average, sort of 4 to 5 hours.
Anyone who sleeps for an average of under six hours a night,
there is a slight increased risk of Alzheimer's disease.
What about your bowel motions? Yeah?
Do you feel like when you go that it's a full evacuation?
Ooh. Um...
Yeah, that one, you're just gonna have to use your imagination.
All of this, I don't think it's a secret, it's not necessarily cheap.
Who comes to you?
What sort of people are coming to you for these sorts of tests?
Sometimes you get the, you know,
the 50-year-old hard-working CEO of a company.
You know, he's let his career take over his life
and sort of neglected other parts of his life.
You get another sort of patient
who feels like they're extremely fit and healthy,
but we can always find something wrong with people,
even if they think they're perfect.
I'm going to come back to Adam for the verdict on my health,
but that was a five-hour appointment
that normally comes with a $6,000-bill.
There's only going to be a teeny tiny percentage of the population
that can really take advantage of something like this clinic.
Meanwhile, over in Newcastle...
(UPBEAT MUSIC)
There's culture out there that once you're 60 or 70 or 80,
we need to just, you know, wrap you in cotton wool
and get you ready to die.
Society is telling you you're old and you're weak, but you're not.
Groundwork Fitness is not your average gym,
and Karl Versteeg
is definitely not your average fitness influencer.
Speaking, I guess, for myself, because I have cerebral palsy,
the whole thing around me would have been cotton wool.
That's what's happening with the old age here,
is that you look at Google and put in "Strength training for seniors,"
and you just see these happy, shiny faces
with 2-kilo dumbbells sitting on a ball.
We can do better. So, how heavy are we talking?
You've got 70, 80-year-olds in here, what are they lifting?
We've got a 75-year-old here
that started on 13 kilos and now lifts 78 kilos.
We've got a 70-plus-year-old male lifting 120-kilo deadlift.
The funny thing is,
everyone's going to look at that and go, "Oh wow, that's amazing,"
and, "Oh wow," but it's not. It should be the norm.
I am getting stronger and I'm feeling stronger.
I am amazed at some of the weights that I'm lifting now.
Probably, I've got a bit of a problem, I'm a bit gung-ho...
(LAUGHS) ..and I have to get told,
you know, "Hang on, just draw back a bit there, Mister."
Why is it so important
for older people to do strength training?
It just helps in a myriad of different ways.
So, whether it's lifestyle,
you've got picking up grandkids, you've got groceries,
you've got walking upstairs,
this is what's going to help people stay living independently.
The driving force for me is that I'm a carer.
My husband's got dementia
and so I need to be fit enough, really, to be looking after him.
And the reason I came here is because after post-op surgery,
on my knees - having knee replacements and hip replacements -
I was just getting stiffer and stiffer.
Now I can squat down and just, you know, get straight back up.
A massive improvement.
There'll be, I think, lots of people watching this
thinking, "I couldn't possibly do that.
"What if I get injured?"
What do you say to people?
Well, I've got cerebral palsy and bone-on-bone with my knee,
and I'm still training.
So, basically, no excuses.
Not even for me.
So, we're going to start with some deadlifts.
So, this is probably one of the big four exercises that we do here.
Push your belly to your thighs.
Take a big breath of air
and just pull it up your shins, straight up and then straight down.
Tits to the wall and balls to the floor, for me.
Right. Yep. And then straight down.
This is the biggest bang for your buck.
Like, if you're on a desert island, could only do one lift,
they always say it's either a deadlift or a squat.
How did you get into weightlifting?
My parents got me to start to lift when I was 14 years old.
You know, if I don't lift or... mainly do lifts and squats,
of course, I'll be kind of going backwards
and, apparently, into a wheelchair.
Up.
Down. Breathe out.
Breathe in. That's better.
Yeah. Good.
I'll admit, this is not my first time in a gym,
but the vibe of this place
is unlike anything I've ever experienced.
I don't think older people want to go in and have, you know,
the peacocks walking around
and the 'roid-monkeys and the mirrors and the loud music.
My history with gyms is diabolical, except for this one.
When we were going to some of the other gyms,
their focus wasn't on you.
It was on the young, fit, beautiful people.
This is like exercising with all your friends.
your good friends.
It's a really happy place to come to.
Happy, and potentially life-saving.
1 in 4 people, once they get a hip fracture,
end up in the cemetery 12 months later.
So, if you're building yourself up for bone and muscle strength,
you're going to save yourself a trip to the hospital
or a trip to the cemetery just by being stronger.
Down.
Up.
Eileen Kramer may not be a lifter...
Down.
..but she is militant about exercise.
Touch your toes. Up.
And cross your arms.
And she has another weapon...
I said to her today,
everybody's going to ask you what your secret is.
And she said, "Have something meaningful to do."
And that sort of applies however old you are.
But it, sort of, even more applies to you
when everything else kind of falls away.
She wakes up every day and decides what to create,
be that doing a drawing,
making a...making a story,
writing a story,
choreographing a dance.
And that's what keeps her alive.
I think I'm just getting started.
Back to the Longevity Clinic.
What are my chances of joining Eileen
in the ranks of the super-centenarians?
We've got some great news and some to-work-on news.
Yes. So, we'll start with the good.
So, um, so, basically, um, your lean mass,
so your muscle mass,
you are scoring above average for your height.
Great.
Basically, we want this score to be as high as possible,
because as we get older in life, our muscle mass tends to reduce
so we need a reserve.
So, there is some stuff to work on, as with everyone.
Feel like you're buttering me up. (LAUGHS) Yeah. Soften the blow.
Yeah. I think the blow might be that I'm too soft.
(LAUGHS)
So, the next thing we look at is the fat mass index.
So, your FMI was eight, so this kind of puts you in the...
Well, the normal range is between 3 and 6.
So it put you in the, sort of, Excess Fat category.
Um, so, again, something to work on. Mmm.
My final report from the clinic runs to 50 pages
with some very sensible suggestions around diet and exercise.
It also suggests that I consider some supplements
that, whilst not proven for humans,
do extend the lives of ageing rats and fruit flies.
As for Bryan Johnson, despite a few setbacks,
he says he's now building a religion
that will become the fastest-growing ideology in history.
What do you think of this world of longevity science?
Well, I think there's two sides to this.
One is what this guy is doing,
which I think is both ridiculous and counter-productive.
This is a very selfish n-equals-one experiment he's doing.
How much more valuable it would be if he was putting that money
into randomised controlled trials of some of the things he's doing.
He's doing a dozen different things.
Nobody's going to know in the end whether any of those helped
or any of those killed him or whatever happens.
So I think it's a useless,
very selfish experiment this guy's doing.
However,
there are serious researchers working on longevity science,
and I don't see any big problem with that
because I think everybody who's reached a certain age,
like, Stan and I have reached the age of 80,
we would like to go on living a reasonably healthy,
disability-free life for as long as possible.
But I think it's much more important
to be thinking about putting life into years than years into life.
Lindy, what do you think about longevity science?
Oh, god, it frustrates me
because it's just... it's so anti-life, actually.
You know, and, yeah, sure, try it,
but you cannot ever know the moment of your death.
You cannot know, genetically,
if you're predisposed to live to 50 or 110.
None of those things are within your control.
Look, it's really important to be healthy.
It's really... I swim two kilometres most days,
you know, because that's just my thing.
I like to be fit, I like to eat reasonably well,
but I have no idea the moment I'm going to die,
I have no idea that all the things that I am doing with my life
won't end in cancer or whatever.
And what frustrates me is
because all of your eggs are being put over in that basket
of reaching 150 years old, or something like that,
and what you're missing out on is your life right now.
Stan, if I could give you a pill that would make you young again,
would you take it?
STAN: Yes, I would take it.
I hate the thought of dying. Yeah?
Mm. I just want to be alive forever.
I've got a habit of,
if I'm sitting out on the bench outside IGA,
I will, um, ask a person sitting next to me,
"How old are you?"
and they will say, "Oh, I might, oh, I might be 65."
And I think to myself, "Fuck, I've done well," you know.
Because I walk everywhere. I've never driven a car.
And every morning I'm up at 6:30 and I'm exercising the dog.
And... But I do, um, I go to the gym.
But it's what you put in your mouth.
I'm very pedantic about my diet and everything.
I would love to have a hunk of that bread,
but I know it's probably... it'll show up on my on my waist.
You know what I mean?
Well, I think if you're talking about a good older age,
I mean, the short answer is you need three things.
Something or someone to love,
something to do,
and something to look forward to.
Um, and most of those are available to most people.
You've got to exercise.
You've got to sleep 7 to 9 hours a night.
You've got to eat sensibly.
You've got to drink alcohol moderately, very moderately.
Not smoke. Look after your cardiac-risk factors.
But the most important factor by a mile,
just above exercise, is the relationship business.
So, that's the secret, real secret, to ageing
is to establish and keep those relationships.
Well, I've failed on all counts so there's no hope for me.
(LAUGHS)
I eat what I like when I like,
sleep a couple of hours at a time.
I think a sense of purpose is what keeps you going.
You've gotta have a sense of purpose.
But I'm the wrong person to talk to about longevity
because I've been so ready to die for so long.
If I go out and get hit by a car today, don't cry for me.
Just be grateful that you've met me before.
Every day I wake up and think, "Bugger, I'm still here."
Still to come...
(BARKING)
..the technology that could keep you out of aged care.
Without my technology here at home, I couldn't function.
It's helped me to survive.
And what to do when you're ready to die.
I am going to walk naked at a nude beach.
I can sort of determine the time of my death.
I'm not scared of death. Um, death is the easy bit, really.
It's what comes before death that's the hard bit.
At the age of 66,
um, I was diagnosed with frontotemporal dementia.
That's the sort of diagnosis that nobody wants.
People say, "Oh, you don't look as if you've got dementia."
I'm not quite sure how people want me to look.
There are hundreds and hundreds of different types of dementia.
Alzheimer's the most common. But we all have different symptoms.
Set the alarm to remind me I've got the washing on.
That's set.
With frontotemporal dementia, it's not all about memory.
It's not about losing your keys.
It's losing everything.
I became very disorganised.
I lost the ability to multi-skill.
And, um, my friends, um, said to me, "You're really blunt.
"You're abrupt. You're interrupting us.
"You're quite rude. You're not the Bobby we know."
About four years ago things were getting really bad.
I'd had a fire, and things were getting horribly burnt,
and I was throwing away more pans than I could afford.
And I had an ACAT assessment for, um...to receive assistance at home.
And the assessor asked the normal questions,
and she talked about the need for me to go into residential care.
I said, "You're kidding me. I can't go into care."
I think going into residential care is everybody's worst nightmare.
For those of us with dementia, um, we tend to get locked away.
(RECORDING OF BOBBY'S VOICE ) Bobby, it's time to log on for your meeting
it's about to start, hurry up.
WOMAN ON LAPTOP: This morning I went to the council inclusion meeting
this morning. Oh, yeah. OK.
And are you going down next week to Dementia Australia in Ryde?
Have you been invited down?
Luckily, I have friends who are working in dementia research.
And so I got on to them and I said, "Help me quick."
They gave me all these tips and ideas
and simple, simple technological things.
Now I've got technology everywhere in my home.
I got an electrician come in and fix up my cooker
so that it's now on a timer.
It means that I'm not going to set fire to the house
so that's a really good thing.
I have a motion-detection system
which basically recognises when I'm moving around in the house.
That one goes back to a base who send out a text to my daughter
just to let them know that I'm up and about each day.
(WOMAN'S VOICE) Sorry, that's one of my prompts.
Is it time to walk around and have a drink?
That prompt to have a drink and walk around
is to remind me that I need to keep my fluids up
and it's to remind me to go to the bathroom because I can forget,
which isn't pleasant.
(DOG YAPS) Oh, yeah?
(WOOFS) Woof. What?
So, I have this robotic dog.
When he's calm, you can actually feel a heartbeat.
Hello. People love them.
Um, it's just that I don't.
When he keeps wanting to talk to me and yap at me and carry on,
I want to throw him out the window. (BARKS)
(LAUGHS) But that's just me.
The yapping I find really annoying so luckily I can mute it,
but then it's a bit creepy
when it's moving around without making any sound.
(PHONE RINGS)
Oh, now the phone's going. There you are.
It's all happening. You're quiet now.
My biggest help is just my telephone,
my alarm system and my telephone.
I found out I could record messages.
It's like having a carer living with me, only it's my voice.
(RECORDED MESSAGE) "Hey, Bobby, it's tablet time."
I'm always arguing with myself.
OK. Got it. Yeah, I know, tablet time. I'm going.
Coming. Shh! Stop! Thank you.
My current motto, "The only fear is no Wi-Fi."
(LAUGHS)
Without my technology here at home, I couldn't function.
It's helped me to survive.
Hey, Google, help me. Am I getting worse?
"Some days are better than others. Keep on doing your best.
"You're still managing so much better than others expect you to."
"Be kind to yourself."
Sometimes when you live alone,
you just need somebody to remind you of the things
that you have to remind yourself of at times.
I would actually quite like a robot.
We know that there's not the manpower out there
to look after the ageing population as it is,
and we all want to stay at home.
None of us want to go into care.
I honestly believe that technology is the future for us.
(RECORDING) "Bobby, it's time to put the washing on
"or take it out or hang it out."
I don't believe that necessarily having dementia,
living with dementia, means suffering.
There's me and there's my dementia.
We sit alongside each other. But dementia is not me.
Dementia doesn't make me what I am.
It's just something that gets in the way sometimes
of letting me be what I want to be.
Hey, Google, play An Elegant Affair from Spotify.
"Alright." I've been a dancer all my life.
That's what I miss.
There was actually a recent fundraiser
here on the Central Coast.
Dance Against Dementia, they called it.
The guy that was organising it was a really nice man.
When we started dancing, he said, "You're a dancer."
And I said, "I used to be a dancer."
So he said, "I can tell you're a dancer.
"I can feel it in the way you move."
It was one of the nicest things anybody's said to me for a long time
because I recognised that
that's something that has left my life.
And, um, him saying that really made me feel as if,
yeah, you know what, I am a dancer.
I might not be able to dance anymore,
but that doesn't stop me being a dancer.
What do you wish we would change
about the way society deals with people living with dementia?
I wish the stigma would stop.
The minute you get diagnosed, people recoil.
If I had cancer, people would be gathering around,
people would be supporting me.
The minute you're diagnosed with dementia,
your friends leave, people recoil.
So, can you go back and tell me about that moment
when you got the diagnosis?
How did it feel at that moment?
I went home to die.
I took to my bed, I stopped showering.
I'm still ready to die.
I'm not doing it today,
but at that time, I just wanted to die.
I wanted to do it quick.
If you don't eat, you don't drink, you've got a good chance of dying.
I was 59 when I was diagnosed with younger-onset dementia.
Dementia is here. It's like Covid. It's running rampant.
We're not going to avoid it because we don't know the cures,
we don't know the causes.
We know some modifiable factors,
but I'm a perfect example of modifiable factors.
I've never drunk alcohol I've never smoked cigarettes,
never had a cup of coffee in my life.
I think it's the most neglected illness in our society.
I remember one fellow who was the British boxing champion.
He would run a half marathon each day,
go to the gym, work out, and do boxing.
Then he got younger onset-dementia, he was put into a nursing home,
brought over by his family, put in a nursing home,
and they wondered why he was wandering, intrusive, aggressive.
There was no exercise for him to do.
There was nothing to expend his activity on,
nowhere for him to wander.
We don't wander, John, we walk. Change your language.
That's typical geriatrician medical language.
We aren't deficits. You can't talk, "They...."
You have to accept that we are all individuals.
And we walk, we don't wander.
I don't mind walking,
but exercising, walking, That's the...
You don't disagree as much as you think you do, I don't think.
This is where you come in with ageism, though,
because with dementia, we talk, we change the language.
Suddenly "they're child-like," suddenly "they wander".
"They have behaviours."
STAN: I would hate to end up with a dementia
that you turn into a really aggro person.
Like me?
No, that lashes out, you know, physically
and has to be, um, kept under control and whatever.
I would hate that.
So, there's been a lot of talk about ageing.
I'm interested in death.
John, what does a good death look like to you?
I... well, I'm in a privileged position again, being a doctor,
I can sort of determine the time of my death.
Um, look, it's very much bound up with my wife.
Um, so, uh...
..if she has a problem that restricts the quality of her life,
I think we'd be, probably, happy to go together.
Um.
I'm not quite so concerned about the quality of my life.
Although I would never want to wind up in residential aged care,
I would probably do something to end it
before I wound up in residential aged care.
Being a gay man,
the only thing that worries me about getting older is,
um, going into a home,
being looked after by people that aren't in my mindset,
you know, would probably think,
"Oh, you know, he's an old poof," you know what I mean?
Until two months ago,
I would have said I'm never going to a residential aged care facility.
I have now found three in Australia that I would go to,
which gives everybody hope.
There are some good residential aged care facilities.
I could not have said that three months ago.
Interesting.
Gwenda, do you have an end-of-life plan?
Absolutely. Tell me about it.
I am going to walk naked at a nude beach,
and I'm going to walk into the ocean.
I came into the world naked, I'll leave naked at a nude beach.
Trouble is that now I've lost my driver's license,
I'm going to have to have somebody assist me
which leaves them vulnerable to the law.
But I will certainly end my life my way.
But voluntary assisted dying,
I'm deemed as having no capacity to give authority.
I don't know what I'm doing because I have a dementia diagnosis.
So, this is an important point, right?
So, voluntary assisted dying, it is legal throughout Australia
but not for people with dementia.
Does that need to change, John.
Uh, look, firstly, I'm not sure I agree
that Gwenda does not have capacity.
I don't think just because you have dementia,
you don't have the capacity.
I think the problem more would be getting someone to say
that Gwenda is going to die within the next 12 months.
That's... Because you've got to have a condition
that's going to kill you within six months
if it's like cancer or something,
or if it's a neurodegenerative disease, within 12 months.
I have put up one person with dementia
for voluntary assisted dying and he was knocked back.
I didn't agree with the decision, but he was knocked back.
What does healthy ageing look like to you, Linda?
It's about attitude, so... Which might be...
I mean, we've got a lot of attitude here
that I think really contributes to your vitality.
Um, it's the attitude to want to be, to be satisfied
or to be, to see a completion of a project
or to enjoy the connection and intimacy that you do.
But find some... find another mammal to cuddle.
Lindy, your mum's over 100 years old.
When you ask her now about her life, "What makes a good life?"
What does she say?
Eat no fat. (LAUGHS)
She gave us a whole lecture.
"You want to live long, you eat no fat." OK.
One of the best conversations I had with mum was about two weeks ago
when I simply asked her, "Mum, are you OK with your life?"
And she most beautifully just sort of turned to me and she grinned
and she said, "Ah...I satisfied."
And like, that is just, you know, that is the best answer possible.
Mm.
You promise you'll keep my secret? Yeah.
What is that?
Very important. I can't tell anybody else.
OK, alright. You don't tell anybody.
OK, alright.
The secret... Mmm?
I love you. (LAUGHS)
I love you too. That's your secret?
(LAUGHS) Yeah, it's a secret.
We all love you.
Yeah, of course. (LAUGHS)
It's funny. Funny secret.
JOHN: Well, interestingly,
most older people are happier than younger people.
Um, I mean,
there's a lot of depression and loneliness in older age.
But if you actually survey the community,
the levels of life satisfaction and happiness
are highest in older people.
So, most people are finding
older age a pleasant part of their life.
Thank you all so much for coming.
And I suppose, in the spirit of Lindy's mum,
I'm gonna toast to being satisfied.
Oh, yes. Cheers.
Thank you all so much. Thank you. Thank you, Marc.
Can't reach all the way over there. My arms are not long enough.
Coming up next week, enter the menopause warriors.
More than a decade of feeling like shit.
But not for everybody.
Not for everybody, but for a lot of women.
I mean, my mother's generation.
I remember them being in a cardigan coven
in the corner of the kitchen,
talking about The Change, you know, as though Voldemort was coming.
Inside the menopause industrial complex.
It's really clever marketing.
Women are being preyed upon
by companies that are making products
that say they do stuff that they don't do.
They're only trading off it because there's a gap.
GPs definitely need to be not dismissing women.
Menopause is very natural. It's just part of life.
Yes, it's natural,
but it doesn't mean that people like us need to suffer.
I don't want to have to flip this table, but I might.
Emergency HRT. Emergency over here.
And life after menopause.
Sex gets better and better and better.
Well, I can't believe I'm even vertical right now.
(LAUGHTER)
That's next week on Tell Me What You Really Think.
# Think, think, think, think
# Think, think, think, think. #
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