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- [00:04]
Samantha Sellinger Morris
When the murky and fast flowing waters surged into their house in northern Victoria, Brian and Glenys Mulcahy were determined they would save their home of more than 50 years. In the end, they couldn't. But what they didn't know then, during that devastating flood in 2022, was that the worst was still to come. For Brian Mulcahy was never the same again. The previously active man slid into a state of listlessness and was later sent to a mental health facility. I'm Samantha Sellinger Morris and you're listening to the morning edition from the Age and the Sydney Morning Herald. Today regional editor Benjamin Price on the link between dementia and natural disasters. It's March 30th. Welcome, Benjamin, back to the podcast.
- [00:54]
Benjamin Price
Thank you. It's great to be here again.
- [00:56]
Samantha Sellinger Morris
Well, I'm very looking forward to speaking to you about this. To start, can you just tell us a little bit about Brian and Glenis, whose home was inundated during a catastrophic flood in Victoria in 2022. Who are they and how did you meet them? Because it's quite an extraordinary story.
- [01:12]
Benjamin Price
Yeah, so they're a really sort of lovely friendly couple who I happen to meet in probably one of the most unpleasant moments of their. We were covering the floods in Rochester in 2022, me and Age photographer Justin McManus. We were some of the only media there at the time who had stayed to cover it. And we were wading through probably knee deep flood water in the streets when we came across Brian and a couple of other people and he was pumping water out of his front yard and he'd set up a kind of like a sandbag defense and he was essentially just trying to save his home from being flooded. And we asked if we could hang around and they said, yeah, that's fine, just you can stay and watch. And yeah, we just sort of were the just observers of this natural disaster unfolding quite slowly in, in real time. Good morning.
- [02:21]
Samantha Sellinger Morris
We start with an urgent weather alert with a severe storm warning issued for most of Victor and towns now on alert for a 1 in 50 year flood. Incredibly nervous time. And this is what is happening here right now. All these teams are here preparing these sandbags. Everyone in the community is trying to help out. There are locals here, there are people who've come from Melbourne. The town of Rochester in the state's north is one of those in the firing line. As the Campaspe river rises, more than a thousand properties in Rochester have been swamped with water levels set to exceed the catastrophic floods in 2011. The town is now cut off from. From the rest of the state, with residents told it is too late to leave.
- [03:05]
Benjamin Price
After a while, it became quite clear that they were not going to be able to pump their way out of. Out of this disaster. And the water was probably going to come inside their house. It had come inside their house once before in 2011. That was a less severe flood.
- [03:19]
Glenys Mulcahy
In 2011, we had 6 inches in, and in 2022, we had 10 inches in.
- [03:28]
Benjamin Price
Yeah. And, yeah, obviously, 2022 was when, yeah, me and Justin were here.
- [03:33]
Glenys Mulcahy
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Helping us.
- [03:37]
Benjamin Price
Yeah, that's right, yeah. So they knew that their house was vulnerable and we went inside with them and they were actually. They were just so friendly and generous. And Glennis was smiling the whole time because she's a very sort of cheery, smiley person. Even though it was so unpleasant. She kept apologizing that she couldn't feed us and give us a cup of tea. And after a while, we just started helping to lift the furniture and we lifted some of the appliances and things like that because, you know, like, Justin and I are both quite a bit younger than Brian and Glynis. And then, yeah, we just sort of watched the water come inside. And there is a few things that really stick in my mind. I remember standing on the balcony of their. The veranda, rather, of their home, and just watching spiders crawling up the walls. They'd abandoned their homes, too. And I remember just, like, being in. Inside the house and I could hear the. I could hear a bubbling and it was just like water started coming up through the toilet and then the water just started coming in sort of from everywhere, and it was just sort of this slow, slow march of the water. But it was clear that was just going to keep coming. And after a while, Justin and I had to leave and continue with our work and we had to go and file our stories. So we left them there. But we kept in touch.
- [05:10]
Samantha Sellinger Morris
I mean, it sounds. Honestly, it sounds like a horror movie. And, I mean, as you've written, the floodwater, it reached 10 inches above floor level in their house. And Brian and Glenys, they moved to a caravan about 20 minutes away. Right. While they were waiting for repairs to their home that was caused by the damage of this flood. And it was at that point that Glennis realized that her husband Brian just wasn't coping. So tell us what happened next.
- [05:35]
Benjamin Price
Yeah, well, so I kept checking in with Glennis afterwards and she would often tell me that, yeah, they've been having a bit of a hard time. And Brian in Particular had been struggling. He lost a fair bit of motivation and things like that and it seemed like he wasn't really getting that much enjoyment from the things that he really used to, he used to love. That would play out more afterwards as well. And then, yeah, she just sort of kept me updated and said that, you know, he'd had to go to hospital after he'd. He had a bit of a collapse.
- [06:09]
Glenys Mulcahy
It's all started. He was down in the caravan and he couldn't sleep and one morning he got up and he collapsed And I rang Triple O and the ambos come around and they said, well, he hasn't had a heart, heart attack or a stroke or that. And they took him up to Echuca Hospital and kept that.
- [06:28]
Benjamin Price
He'd spent some time in a mental health facility and then ultimately later that he had been diagnosed with dementia.
- [06:34]
Glenys Mulcahy
He just, yeah, deteriorated from there and they suggested that we have a scan on his brain and that's when they found out he had dementia.
- [06:45]
Samantha Sellinger Morris
And it was pretty shocking, right, because he collapses. This is just, I think a few days after the flood, like you said, he wasn't himself. And then one day he just gives. Gives out. She rings Triple O, the paramedics arrive and I think she was quite surprised when she was eventually told that actually he hadn't suffered a heart attack or a stroke. Like that's maybe what she thought originally.
- [07:05]
Benjamin Price
Right, well, that would have been, I guess, an obvious concern or conclusion to make in the stress of the moment. I probably would have assumed the same thing. So, yeah, I think for me it would come as a surprise to get that kind of news that it's just a collapse rather than some kind of life threatening moment.
- [07:33]
Samantha Sellinger Morris
And this is, I think, where your story takes perhaps an even more unexpected or extraordinary turn because Glenn has told you that she believes that the flood actually triggered the brain condition. You know, like you said, he'd been diagnosed with dementia. And then through your maintaining your connection, you actually came across a common thread that people had been suffering as a result of the flood. And it wasn't just a coincidence. Right, like you found other people that had been suffering after this flood.
- [08:01]
Benjamin Price
Yeah, that's right. So I went to Brian's funeral a few weeks ago and I got to talking to people afterwards and it was a bit of a common theme that emerged that some of the older people in the community had really struggled afterwards. That flood hit the community broadly, really quite hard. There were fewer people who were able to help their neighbours because so many were struggling themselves. Still there was a huge effort of support. It was really quite inspiring. And I think that the way that that community has handled itself in some ways has been really quite impressive to me. But this impact on older people for me was quite striking. It was a common theme. A lot of people mentioned it to me. The more phone calls I made afterwards, the more people had similar stories. And I found out as well that the science, the research does have something to say about this.
- [09:12]
Samantha Sellinger Morris
After the break.
- [09:13]
Benjamin Price
Communities around Australia are suffering almost at any time of the year from natural disaster. And the people I've spoken to are saying this really needs to be part of our emergency response.
- [09:35]
Samantha Sellinger Morris
I mean, this is incredible because specifically the people you'd spoken to after this flood, in this community, multiple people said that a parent or someone close to them had suffered significant cognitive decline or been diagnosed with dementia after the floods. Now, this is definitely a connection that, you know, totally new to me. I'd never heard about this. But tell us about the research that you discovered that suggests that there might be some scientific basis to this connection.
- [09:59]
Benjamin Price
That's right, yeah. And I think we need to be careful about how we think about a connection here. The research that I've read or one of the studies suggested that there is an increased risk of dementia after a flood. Other experts I've spoken to have mentioned things like it's possible that there was a pre existing condition there and a flood unmasked, that in regional areas people don't have as much access to health facilities and health resources. Experts think that there's a lot of undiagnosed dementia in the community broadly. So it's possible that the flood has unmasked some of these things, or floods do that in general. Perhaps natural disasters do that in general too. But the other thing about floods is that there's a whole lot of factors involved in floods that are particularly unhealthy and can be really problematic for somebody who is vulnerable to a condition like dementia, I would imagine perhaps already has symptoms of dementia. You know, these are things like the stress that continues for a long period of time. There can be a long buildup with floods beforehand and a long period of uncertainty when it's actually happening about whether your house is going to be impacted or not, or once it is. It takes a long time often to get, you know, tradespeople in assessors deal with insurance companies. These things are stressful under normal circumstances, but in the flood you've got this long tail of stress. That's bad, that's. That's bad for our health. There's also a massive disruption to routine. You don't have the same, you don't have the same house, so you don't have the same, you know, the same sort of like routine. And the, you know, just the ability to walk through your house almost with your eyes closed and know where things are, you know, it's, it's harder to get access to fresh fruit and vegetables in a flood. These are all unhealthy things that can contribute to chronic disease.
- [12:12]
Samantha Sellinger Morris
You mentioned just before that a flood can unmask a pre existing condition. So can you walk us through that a little bit? How can it do that?
- [12:19]
Benjamin Price
Well, I think that from some of the experts I've spoken to, I mean, I was just on the phone earlier to a geriatrician called Kate Gregorovich and she was saying that you've got to be careful about whether we treat one thing as causing the other. But if somebody is already dealing with dementia or in the early stages of dementia, if somebody is already in the early stages of dementia, then the fallout from a flood, the social dislocation, the disruptions to routine, all of those things that can perhaps shine a light on symptoms that were not that obvious beforehand. The other thing is that she was saying that, you know, when somebody in the early stages of dementia or undiagnosed dementia experiences a life changing event, like say a man with early stage of dementia who experiences the loss of a partner, there might have been things beforehand that masked those dementia symptoms. For example, if the wife was the one that did all of the, you know, the social organizing and then all of a sudden she's not there to do that, then that can unmask a situation where this person is really lonely and it's bad for their health.
- [13:41]
Samantha Sellinger Morris
Right, okay. And so you mentioned a 2025 study just earlier led by researchers from Monash University and China that drew, like you said, this link between flooding and, and increased dimension risk. So not necessarily a straight causational link, but a link. But this study just wasn't conducted in Australia. Right. There was actually evidence from disasters around the world as well that sort of makes this link.
- [14:04]
Benjamin Price
So this study analyzed a large amount of data from the UK and I guess in the UK they don't have the same bushfire problem as we do here. So I guess that's why they focused on flood. But the study, as research often does, is it cites other research as well. And so they cited some studies, particularly in Japan, that showed that dementia medication rose after a flood. And I think that it's worth us looking into more and that the researchers should spend more time looking into it. And the experts I've spoken to are also saying that authorities in Australia need to be more aware of how people are struggling after a natural disaster, after a flood, and that people experienced in identifying symptoms of conditions like dementia should be out there on the ground during and after natural disasters.
- [15:05]
Samantha Sellinger Morris
And one expert that you spoke to mentioned that she believes that dementia actually remains undiagnosed among many people as its symptoms are often mistaken as a normal part of aging. Does that mean that for a lot of people, perhaps even in Rochester, where you met Brian, that they could be suffering from a decline and just not realize it like he did?
- [15:27]
Benjamin Price
Well, I guess it is possible that more people are suffering from. Yeah, the early stages of dementia and not know about it. Especially like we were saying earlier, especially in regional areas where people don't have as much access to health services. I think that it probably stands to reason that if they can't get access to diagnoses as easily, then there's a good chance that people are suffering in a way that's not really recognised. But this does seem to be a problem more broadly. So the top 10 places for dementia diagnoses that I found in a story that my colleagues Henrietta Cook and Asia Dow did a couple of years ago, the top 10 places for dementia were not in regional Victoria, they were in Melbourne. But I don't know exactly how to account for that. There could be a whole lot of reasons for that, greater population density or whatever the case may be.
- [16:28]
Samantha Sellinger Morris
And so what more do researchers hope change in this space about how vulnerable people in our communities do need support when either preparing for disaster or, as in the case of Brian and Glenis, after they've experienced one?
- [16:42]
Benjamin Price
Well, I think just a greater awareness is the first thing, that this is something that needs to be part of the emergency response, given that we're such a natural disaster prone country that, you know, communities around Australia are suffering almost at any time of the year from natural disaster. And the people I've spoken to are saying this really needs to be part of our emergency response. We need to have people who are trained in recognizing the symptoms and the ways in which people might be struggling. And how do we, I don't know about preventing it, but how do we make their lives better for them? How do we help them get back on their feet? How do we get people living a more healthy lifestyle and enjoying their golden years? Because that was one thing that people spoke to me about repeatedly in Rochester, was that they feel like there's a group of people who have been denied their golden years, denied the chance to enjoy those moments in retirement and really be full functioning, you know, important parts of the community as they are. Like, they spoke a lot about the importance of their, of their elders and the knowledge that they embody and all of those things. And I think that it's really hard on a town like Rochester, which already skews older, to have so many people struggling after a flood. We need to be thinking about this stuff into the future because climate change is only going to make it more challenging.
- [18:12]
Samantha Sellinger Morris
And so, Benjamin, just to wrap up, you know, for people who are listening, who might be thinking about their parents or their grandparents, and particularly after, you know, we've had bushfires and lived through the pandemic and other natural disasters, what are some of the signs that they should perhaps look out for that they might think are signs of aging, but they could actually be signs of early undiagnosed dementia or other conditions?
- [18:35]
Benjamin Price
One thing that Dr. Kate Gregorovich mentioned to me was that apathy is one of those things that people don't realize may be a symptom of dementia. So she said to me, it's probably the most common first symptom. So I guess if you realize that a loved one is not excited or interested in the things that you see to interest them, then maybe it's worth starting to dig a little bit deeper into that.
- [19:07]
Samantha Sellinger Morris
That is such good insight. Thank you so much, Benjamin, for your time.
- [19:12]
Benjamin Price
Thank you so much. It's great to be with you again.
- [19:21]
Samantha Sellinger Morris
Today's episode was produced by Josh Towers. Our executive producer is Tammy Mills. And our podcasts are overseen by Lisa Muxworthy and Tom McKendrick. If you like our show, follow the Morning Edition and leave a review for us on Apple or Spotify. Thanks for listening.