There's a moment Hannah McQueen likes to return to: the eve of D-Day, a room full of generals waiting for the weather to break, and — of all things — a birthday cake. When the skies cleared, Eisenhower said four words: "Okay, let's go." Then history moved.
Last week, Age Brightly had our own quiet-room moment. Over a Purple Morning Tea with the people who've walked alongside us through Post-it note sessions, coffee chats and strategy days, we officially launched MindThrive — our first proactive brain health programme, and the opening move in a much bigger fight against dementia.
The numbers are hard to sit with. New Zealand has somewhere between 70,000 and 80,000 people living with dementia today — and by some estimates, half of them don't yet know it. Five hundred more people are diagnosed every single week. By 2050, we're looking at more than 200,000 New Zealanders living with the disease.
Perhaps the most frustrating statistic of all: it currently takes an average of three and a half years to get a diagnosis. That's three and a half years lost from the exact window where early action can change the trajectory of the disease.
As Hannah put it to the room, at Age Brightly we sometimes get in trouble for saying it plainly: the sooner we know, the sooner we slow.
MindThrive is a pre-diagnosis brain health programme built on a simple but powerful idea — one in three dementia diagnoses are preceded by a period of cognitive impairment, and that window is an opportunity. Proactive brain health work that targets modifiable risk factors can genuinely slow decline and delay onset.
MindThrive isn't a single test or a one-off appointment. It's a coordinated, three-month clinical pathway, drawing on eight clinicians to investigate and address the reversible contributors to cognitive decline — things like depression, sleep apnoea, nutrient deficiencies, cardiovascular risk, medication interactions and hearing loss. It's designed for people noticing changes in their memory, thinking or concentration, for those flagged through a Brightly Baseline assessment, and for the partners and spouses of someone already living with a diagnosis.
MindThrive is the first of four programmes Age Brightly is building to take on dementia from every angle:
MindThrive — slowing decline through proactive brain health, launched today
MindResolve — launching in the coming weeks, focused on fast, thorough diagnosis: the type, the stage, and the treatment options available
Living well with dementia — support that doesn't ask people to relinquish control or drift toward crisis
Supporting carers — because the data shows caregivers face up to a six-hundred-percent greater risk of developing dementia themselves. As Hannah said, carers are often "the silent ones who forget to care for themselves as they give everything for their partner."
Numbers can only carry a message so far. That's why Hannah grounded the room in real stories — the ones we've had the privilege of hearing on our podcast. Dave's dad, Graham. Mary's mum, Joyce. Girvan's mum, Annette. Each one a reminder that dementia doesn't just take memories; it tears at connection, and it takes what it wants along the way.
Age Brightly's message back to it was simple: not today.
For our team, this launch marked something else too — a shift from planning to doing. As Hannah reflected, Age Brightly prides itself on executing well, or failing fast and executing better the next time. MindThrive is that principle in action.
We're deeply grateful to everyone who joined us for the Purple Morning Tea, and to organisations like Alzheimer's New Zealand and Dementia North, who've been in the trenches on this fight for years already. If we can support the work they're already doing, we'll know this was worth it.
MindResolve, our diagnosis-focused programme, launches in the coming weeks — stay tuned.