So just let's start off, can you tell us how do medical experts actually define dementia, and what is life actually like for the roughly 450,000 Australians who are currently affected by it?

Well, look, dementia is actually an umbrella term for various progressive brain conditions that can impair your memory, thinking, behavior, and your ability to carry out everyday activities.

So Alzheimer's disease is the most common form, and that accounts for around 60 to 70% of cases.

But other common types include vascular dementia, Lewy body dementia, which is a type that can cause hallucinations and delusions and paranoia, and that's the type that actor Robin Williams had, although, um, that only became apparent after he'd died.

Frontotemporal dementia is the type that the actor Bruce Willis has, and that targets the part of the brain involved in language and, and behavior.

And as to what life's like, well, it, it really varies to people living with dementia from those like our case study, Bill Yeats, whom I spoke to for the story.

He managed to maintain a very active and, and full life seven years after his diagnosis with early onset dementia.

You write that, quote, "Australia is incubating a dementia time bomb." Walk us through this, Claire.