About 90 children die in Australia every year from childhood dementia — a similar number of deaths as from childhood cancer, which receives 20 times more government funding for research.
abc.net.au/news/call-for-more-research-into-childhood-dementia/101450452When Adelaide mother Renee Staska found out her youngest son had a rare genetic disorder, she decided to have her other two children tested for peace of mind.Childhood dementia receives 20 times less government funding for research than childhood cancer"I thought I'll just blood test them, get it over and done with [so I can] stop worrying and then they both came back positive with it as well," Ms Staska said.
Ms Staska's pregnancies with Hudson and Holly were considered low risk; however, when she was 28 weeks pregnant with Austin, a growth scan detected ascites – an accumulation of fluid in the abdomen. "He was pretty much perfect. He still had the enlarged liver and spleen, so we went under the care of the gastro team at Women's and Children's," Ms Staska said."He was eight months old when the doctor said 'it's just taking a little bit longer than I would expect for his liver to go back to a normal function – I'm just going to run some gene panels'."
"You're looking at your children and they're happy and they're doing everything they're supposed to do… It's just a mismatch and it's really hard to make sense of it," she said.Diagnoses accelerating at 'startling rate' It affects about 2,000 children in Australia but the federal government only put $3 million of funding towards research this year.
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