Dementia, heard through lived experience.
Windows on Dementia brings together people living with dementia, whānau, service workers, researchers, and advocates across Aotearoa. Its episodes turn personal stories into clearer understanding of care, diagnosis, stigma, support services, and the policy choices shaping everyday life.
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Windows on Dementia is a New Zealand podcast about dementia as it is lived, supported, researched, and argued for in public systems. The show’s strongest episodes begin with people rather than policy. Corey talks about being a teenager whose dad has young onset dementia, and the conversation stays close to the emotional and practical adjustments that follow. Alistair Robertson speaks from lived experience, including diagnosis, stigma, family and community support, and new work that grew from his own journey. Rosie Chambers, Glenn Bradley, Renee Clark, Trudy Bridges, and others describe what local Alzheimer’s services look like on the ground. These are not abstract services. They include day programs, respite care, cognitive stimulation therapy, social groups, walking groups, referral pathways, and the reassurance of someone arriving when a family has just been told dementia is now part of their life. The show is also willing to talk about pressure. Several conversations return to underfunding, regional variation, remote access, and the gap between stated support for dementia care and the resources available to deliver it. That makes the podcast useful for families, but also for people who work in health, aged care, advocacy, or government. It explains systems in plain language. It also keeps the human stakes visible. Conversations with Catherine Hall and Tracey Martin place dementia care inside wider debates about aged care policy, reform, co-payment, emergency departments, and choices governments make about where care happens. A kōrero with Sir Richard Faull adds a research lens, tracing how donated human brain tissue and family histories helped deepen understanding of neurological disease. The pacing is measured and interview-led. The show gives guests time to find the point, then gently frames what it means for listeners. It is compassionate without becoming sentimental, and practical without sounding detached. Windows on Dementia works best for people who want to understand dementia through lived experience, local service reality, and the policy structures that shape care in Aotearoa.
Made for: For people living with dementia, whānau, carers, service workers, advocates, and policy-minded listeners in New Zealand. It also suits anyone trying to understand support options without losing the human context.
What sets it apart: The show connects intimate lived experience with service design, research, and aged care policy. It is local, practical, and unusually attentive to how dementia support changes by community, region, and family situation.
People living with dementia are citizens whose lives matter. They have the same rights, needs and desires as everyone else, but are ignored far too often. It’s time their voices were heard. So join us and let's talk dementia.
Based on 4 episodes we listened to · September 2026
It makes dementia care concrete by connecting lived experience with service navigation and the systems that shape support.
Windows on dementia follows the practical consequences of dementia from a person's living room into New Zealand's research and policy institutions.
A brain bank meets the front line, so your dementia questions leave the abstract.
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Short reviews from the PlayNext desk, based on the episodes we processed.
A humane look at brain research shaped by families and donated brains.
This conversation traces a neuroscientist who moved from rat work into human brain research after families began asking him to examine donated brains and, later, to keep them for further study.
A clear guide to how NASC works, and why referral details matter.
Windows on Dementia offers a practical look at NASC through Lanita Russell and Amy Pettigrew-Porter, showing how needs assessment and service coordination can connect people with support for showering, housework, medication supervision, and other everyday tasks.
A careful policy discussion that keeps aged care tied to real-world pressure.
Windows on Dementia keeps its focus on Daniel Paul’s conversation with Catherine Hall and Tracey Martin, using the newly announced ministerial advisory group as a springboard into aged care policy.
A plainspoken look at dementia that stays close to lived experience and front-line support.
Windows on Dementia offers a grounded look at how dementia is lived and explained, moving from Alistair Robertson's younger onset diagnosis in 2014 to Rosie Chambers' front-line view of support in South Canterbury.
Jonquilyn Hill chases one listener question per episode to the experts who can answer it.
Hard conversations, patiently held, with room to laugh.
Care, culture, and the choices shaping Black women's lives.
Root-cause health, explained plainly.
Hope, tested in real conversation.
Matthew Croucher says a dementia diagnosis can guide care and unlock funded services, even when a cure is unavailable.
Professor Cliff Abram tells Catherine Hall how psychology at the University of Virginia led him to neuroscience, the University of Otago, and research on learning and memory.
A teenager shares his personal experience and poetry about his father's young onset dementia diagnosis and its impact on his family.
Catherine Hall of Alzheimer's New Zealand speaks with Sir Richard Faull on Windows on Dementia about brain research and dementia.
Lanita Russell opens a practical conversation about needs assessment and service coordination, or NASC, with Amy Pettigrew-Porter.
Tracey Martin says New Zealand’s aged-care system is under pressure from an ageing population, higher care needs, and a 1997 funding agreement.
Daniel Paul opens the conversation with Catherine Hall and Tracey Martin.
This episode features Alzheimer's New Zealand managers discussing dementia support services in their communities, including cognitive stimulation therapy, day programs, and respite care, in light of the upcoming World Alzheimer Report 2025 on dementia rehabilitation.
Amy Hicklund opens Windows on Dementia with a brief introduction.
This episode discusses the underfunded state of community support services for dementia in New Zealand, featuring insights from Alzheimer's organization managers Rosie Chambers and Glenn Bradley.
This episode features caregivers Adrian and Tanya discussing their experiences supporting husbands with dementia, highlighting the urgent need for post-diagnostic support services.
This episode discusses the growing impact of dementia in New Zealand, featuring researchers who contributed to the Dementia Economic Impact Report 2020, highlighting rising cases and disproportionate effects on Māori, Pasifika, and Asian populations.
This episode discusses dementia-friendly design principles and their importance in supporting people with dementia to live fulfilling lives, featuring an interview with an architecture lecturer.