Britt Jones
A dad with younger onset dementia has broken down in tears in a video where he explains a revelation he had about his health.
10 months ago, 41-year-old Fraser was rocked with the news that his life would never be the same again after he was diagnosed with early-onset Alzheimer's disease.
While the news came as a devastating blow, he had noticed a symptom year prior when he was in his 30s.
The father uploaded an explainer video to his YouTube channel, Younger Onset Dementia, in January where the Australian said: "So I got diagnosed eight months ago, and I think my symptoms probably started about two/two-and-a-half years before that.
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"It's funny because I don't remember what my symptoms really were initially, all I remember was having some pretty big memory flaws, like I remember I was sitting down to watch a movie once and my partner's gone, 'yeah, we watched that like a month ago'.
"Anyway, I watched the whole movie, and the ending was still a complete surprise. I had no memory of watching it whatsoever, and I didn't watch many movies either at the time. So it was, it was a bit concerning that was."
Fraser shared that he began struggling to remember what was going on in other people's lives, even though he had been notified.
On one occasion, he frantically began looking for his teenage daughter in their town, even though she had told him that she was going to a movie theatre.
Because of this, Fraser now has a system in place with his teen daughters that they now text him if they go out somewhere, so that he can see the message if he forgets.
However, he has noticed a sad fact about his health…and it has hit him like a ton of bricks.
He uploaded another clip to his channel, where he shared something that had happened to him the day before, but hadn’t realized what it had meant until the next morning.
Fraser began by explaining: “After work yesterday, I went and recorded my next video. I was clear headed, and I was thinking at a deeper level, and I felt so free and euphoric, and it wasn’t until this morning I realized that I hadn’t felt that way for about five weeks.”
At this moment, Fraser began to choke up as he struggled to tell his viewers what it all meant.
He continued: “I’ve just realized that it’s kind of like if you had music playing in the background and it just progressively got louder and louder. Just very slowly. You wouldn’t notice the increase in the volume.”
He went on to say that ‘you sort of reach the maximum level and go ‘ah, is that all it’s got?’.
“But if you were someone else, and you hadn’t gone through that slow increase, and someone just blasted that maximum volume to you, you’d be like ‘woah, that’s too loud,’” he shared. “And I’m just sort of realizing that’s what’s been - that’s what’s going on.”
Fraser continued: “I’m just slowly and progressively getting worse and I’m still functioning in everyday life, but it’s getting so hard and it’s getting so difficult. And I kind of feel like I’ve just always got this headache and it’s just straining; everything is just harder.”
“I’ve realized now that…”
At this point in the video, Fraser was unable to complete his sentence as he continued to sob and posted text in the clip to explain what he was trying to say.
It read: “My ‘normal’ is not the same as it used to be. Although I’ve noticed a decline, I think I may have declined more than I thought.
“My cognitive reserves are just carrying more and more of the load. That’s why I’m finding life more and more exhausting.”
“It’s just shocked me, that’s all,” Fraser ended the video saying.