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September 15, 2025 15 mins

When Kath who lives with dementia became confused inside a public toilet, her husband Bob knew something had to change. 

What started as one small fix in the tiny coastal town of Tumby Bay, South Australia, soon grew into action by the local council — and sparked a ripple effect reaching communities far beyond their town. 

No one can make big changes on their own. Dementia Australia’s National Manager Dementia-Friendly Communities Belinda Curtis explains how small actions can lead to lasting change and why connection really matters when it comes to assisting those living with a dementia diagnosis. 

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Hold The Moment is a podcast from Dementia Australia, produced by Deadset Studios and hosted by Jim Rogers. Follow Dementia Australia on Instagram and find support resources online. Dementia Australia’s Dementia-Friendly Communities program informs and supports people who want to collaborate with people living with dementia to create communities where everyone can participate.   

 

This episode was produced by Amelia Navascues with sound design by Slade Gibson. The executive producers are Sarah Dabro and Kellie Riordan. Production manager is Ann Chesterman. 

 

Dementia Australia and Deadset Studios acknowledge the Traditional Owners of Country throughout Australia and recognise their continuing connection to lands, waters and communities. We pay our respect to their Elders past and present, and extend that respect to all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples today.

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Transcript

Episode Transcript

Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:01):
Hello, my name is Kevin.
I am a First Nations advocatewith Dementia Australia.
These lands in which we are
meeting are many countries
filled with languages similar
and different.
For more than fifty thousand
years, we have come together to
trade knowledge, to learn and to
teach.
Today we join to keep up thattradition.
So with that in mind, we now payour respects to the traditional

(00:24):
owners, to elders, past andpresent, to those First Nations
people joining us here today.
Welcome and thank you.
To get your teeth into somethingyou don't let go.
And that was the term on thisoccasion.
I had the dog by the tail and itwasn't getting away.
Sometimes the smallest momentscan spark the biggest change.

(00:46):
It's hard to believe that thelittle plastic sign on the
toilet door could create newsall over Australia.
It's like a bloody earthquake.
It just went everywhere.
Bob Heath lives in a small town
in South Australia and like me,
Bob's wife Kath is living with
dementia.
The pair were out for lunch one
day and Kath needed to use the

(01:08):
bathroom.
A confusing moment in a publictoilet block followed, but this
moment ended up inspiring changeright across Australia.
I just couldn't believe that itspread so wide in a matter of
forty eight hours sort of stuff.
It had gone from Tumby Bay toPerth and over to Sydney, and

(01:29):
the fact that people were takingnotice and actually interested
in what was happening.
Hi, I'm Jim Rogers and this isHold the Moment.
And as part of Dementia Action
Week twenty twenty five, we're
celebrating the power of
connection.
Because dementia doesn't justaffect one person, it impacts so

(01:53):
many family, friends, workmates.
In fact, it takes a wholecommunity to navigate dementia.
Tumby Bay is on the eastern sideof Eyre Peninsula, about fifty

(02:15):
kms north of Port Lincoln.
It's a little rural town farming
district, very easy going little
town.
Two hotels, fantastic bakery.
It's got everything you reallywant.
It's a great little spot tolive.
We've retired there about twentyyears ago.
I've been married to Kath forsixty years.

(02:37):
Kath always been an outdoor
girl, loves her gardens, loves
being outside.
When Kath was first diagnosedwith dementia, she wouldn't
accept the fact and she tried tohide it from everybody.
So I used to pick up pamphletsabout dementia from places and
leave them around the home sothat people could see it and
perhaps open the subject.

(02:58):
And Kath used to go and hidethem.
So I took her around all thebusiness people that we deal
with in the town and explainedthe situation to them just in
case anything happened, whereshe might suddenly pick up
something and walk out withoutpaying for it or whatever.
It actually worked.
Magic.
She accepted the fact after that
and never bothered to hide it
again.
But it made it easier for her,

(03:18):
for me, and for the business
people to understand the
situation.
Life with dementia is full of
moments you just don't see
coming.
For Kath and Bob, one of thosemoments arrived on what seemed
like just an ordinary day out.

(03:40):
It was a nice day.
We went for a drive down to PortLincoln.
Going to have lunch down theresomewhere.
And Kath decided she wanted togo to the toilet.
So I took her to the publictoilets and she walked in the
door and just walked out again.
And I said to her, are you okay?
She said, I want to go to thetoilet.
And I said, we've just been tothe toilet.
And she said, well, there's notoilets in there.

(04:03):
And that threw me a bit because
there was no signs on the
outside to say it was out of
action or under repairs or
anything else.
So I took it around to thedisabled toilet and went with
her there and sorted things out.
But I stuck with me for a longtime about that, and through
talking to other people, I foundout that the doors and walls

(04:23):
were all painted the samecolour, so I just assumed.
And I'm still assuming that Kath
just seen a blank wall and
thought there was nothing in
there.
It's highly likely Kath feltstress and anxious, and probably
primarily though confusion.
Belinda Curtis is the national
manager of Dementia Friendly
communities at Dementia

(04:45):
Australia.
People living with dementia can
often experience feelings of
being overwhelmed and also
confused when they go into
spaces, and particularly for
Kath on that day where she's
walked into a toilet and the
walls are all white, the doors
are all white, so there's
nothing there for her to

(05:08):
decipher what the environment
contains.
It just looks like a blankcanvas.
And so walking into a place that
you expect to be a bathroom and
expect to see the familiar
things of a toilet seat and not
seeing those things, it would
have been incredibly confusing,
probably even a little bit
alarming.
I don't know who was confused,her or me.

(05:29):
For a start, I just couldn'tcomprehend what she was out
about at all.
Bob was left with the lasting
realization if Cath couldn't see
the toilets, others could be
facing the same challenges and
struggles.
Something had to change.
So Bob started to think aboutthe solutions.
I kept going to our own public

(05:51):
toilets and so forth and looking
at them.
And what can I do here?
I came up with the idea of
approaching our local council to
see if we can just get a picture
of a toilet put on each cubicle
door to help people in that
situation.
If they walk in, they can see atoilet and they be hopefully
open the door.
I thought Bob's idea wasamazing.
At the Dementia Friendly
Communities program, we

(06:12):
encourage people to talk to
their councils and even to just
to look around their local area
and see what can be done to
improve the dementia friendly
elements.
And so when Bob approached usand said he wanted to put some
signage up at the toilets, wejumped on it because this is

(06:34):
exactly what a dementia friendlycommunity is all about.
It's about individuals seeing an
issue and working with others in
their community to find a
solution.
And the beautiful thing about
what Bob has done with the
council is it was a really
simple solution.
It's not a very expensivesolution either.
Putting some signage up in atoilet doesn't cost a lot of

(06:56):
money, but the impact that ithas on individuals who are
living with dementia and theircarers is huge.
So what began as a moment of
confusion soon became Bob's
mission, a mission that would
reshape his entire community
with support from Dementia

(07:16):
Australia.
Bob carried on.
He would not give up.
One visit to the mayor, twovisits to the local council
office and two letters.
One nice little letter for a
start and then a very pointed
one.
In the end, the council did
place the signs on the toilet
doors.
There a bright yellow sign withblack letters on them.

(07:38):
They stand out well and the
council has done a fantastic
job.
So the colours that they've usedon the signage for the bathrooms
is black writing and blackpictures on yellow and yellow is
a great colour because it'soften the last colour in the
colour spectrum that peopleliving with dementia can see.

(07:59):
And in fact, anyone that'sexperiencing sight issues again,
that's a colour that people willsee all the way through to loss
of complete loss of sight.
So it's a great colour and alsohaving contrast.
So what's really important about
creating dementia friendly
spaces is making sure that

(08:19):
there's a lot of contrast in
colors.
So really what Bob has done in
his community has really kick
started the conversation and is
enabling the whole community to
be part of the solution to to
provide that support, to connect
to others.

(08:42):
Once the council backed his
idea, Bob could hardly believe
it.
What began with one publictoilet block soon spread far and
beyond Tumby Bay.
Couldn't believe it was actuallygoing to happen in the finish.
Really impressed with the waythey went about it.
I took some photos.
A couple of days later I get a
message, a phone call from the
local newspaper.

(09:02):
They were onto it and they wantto come and do an interview and
get some photos of the signs andeverything else, and that's
where it just went from there.
Just went everywhere.
Sit down, have a glass of wine
one evening and get a phone call
from Perth.
She introduced itself as the
secretary of the family building
business, and said she didn't
believe that such small things
would mean so much to so many
people.
She said, and then guess what
we're going to do next time we

(09:23):
build a public building in
Perth?
I just couldn't believe thishappened.
I just couldn't believe that itspread so wide in a matter of
forty eight hours sort of stuff.
It had gone from Tumby Bay toPerth and over to Sydney.
It was just unbelievable.
And the fact that people were
taking notice and actually
interested in what was
happening.
They often said how good it was,but no one bought me a beer.
And like I keep getting back tothe great thing is people are

(09:45):
talking about it.
It's opened everyone's eyes and
ears to dementia in more ways
than one.
Who thought that little plastic
sign on a toilet door was going
to get all of Australia talking
about it?
It's unbelievable.
It's not just about the physicalchange that's been made.
It is about the conversationthat Bob and Kath have started

(10:05):
in the community.
So really what Bob has done in
his community has really kick
started the conversation and is
enabling the whole community to
be part of the solution, to
provide that support, to connect
to others.
That's what a dementia friendlycommunity is all about.
It's about people not being
alone because nobody can do it

(10:27):
alone.
We all need help.
And when you're living with
dementia or caring for someone
with dementia, just a little bit
of awareness in your community
and a little bit of support here
and there can make all the
difference.
Since then, Bob hasn't stopped
finding new ways to make a
difference, including starting a

(10:48):
simple coffee catch up that's
become a lifeline for local
carers.
You know, sitting home, gettingbored, doing nothing and decide
to have a coffee.
And I rang up a friend whose
partner is in care with living
with dementia and asked them to
come down the street and have a
coffee, and he said, why should
we?
I said, well, just going, youknow, it's only half a dozen of
us that meet there, but we meetonce a fortnight now and no

(11:12):
rules and regulations.
The only rule we've got is we'vegot five minutes to talk about
your situation with dementia orwhatever it might be.
It's something that has come upthat you might have noticed.
I want to talk about after thatwith your house, go fishing, do
a bit of gardening or whatever.
Tell.
Tell as many lies as you can.
And then we go home again.
It's just to get out of the
house, socialize and do
something.

(11:32):
It doesn't matter who you are inyour community, if you're
experiencing isolation or ifpeople have dropped away
because, well, they're a littlebit confronted by dementia.
So they've stopped connectingwith the person living with
dementia and the carer becausethey don't know what to say.
Or, you know, they think thatsomehow because of this

(11:55):
diagnosis, the person's going tobe radically different.
Social isolation can havedamaging effects on people.
And so communities that are
wanting to be dementia friendly,
that is probably one of the
first places that I would
recommend they start, is making
sure that there is opportunity

(12:16):
for people to have that social
Connection.
And as Bob has shown, it doesn'thave to be complicated.
Well, I certainly do or didn't
do all this for any accolades or
any pat on the back or anything
else.
The best advice I was ever givenwas don't be proud to seek help.
And I found out that you can'tdo it on your own, no matter who
you are and what you are.

(12:36):
You just can't do it.
It's too much.
It's a twenty four over sevenjob.
I think Bob and Cath's story
demonstrates that even those in
the community who are reluctant
heroes, it's it's your everyday
person who can change or change
their community.
Really.
A single voice can be reallypowerful.

(12:59):
And with a little bit of supportfrom organizations like Dementia
Australia and their localcouncil and others, you can see
how quickly it snowballs.
And so just having that oneperson who's brave enough to
tell their story and tobasically do what Bob did, which
was not take no for an answer.
Advocacy is really powerful.

(13:20):
It has given me a great sense ofpurpose, for sure.
You've got to just got to getout front up and do your bit.
And they spread that word aroundwith their friends.
And so it goes.
And the whole town's talking.
Dementia.

(13:45):
Dementia doesn't just affect oneperson.
It touches families, friends andwhole communities.
Kath and Bob's story shows us
what can happen when a community
comes together.
And as Dementia Action Week
reminds us, nobody can do it
alone.

(14:05):
If you'd like to learn more orfind resources for carers and
communities, you'll find linksin our show notes.
You can also call Dementia
Australia's free twenty four
over seven helpline on one eight
hundred Hundred.
One hundred.
Five hundred.
For tips, advice and support,make sure you follow.

(14:28):
Hold the moment wherever you getyour podcasts.
We have so many episodes now
that help you and your family
navigate life with a dementia
diagnosis.
I'm Jim Rogers.
Hold the moment is a podcastfrom Dementia Australia produced

(14:49):
by Dead Set Studios.
You can find more episodes andresources at dementia.
Executive producers are KellyReardon and Sarah Dabro.
This episode was produced byAmelia Novesky with sound design
by Slade Gibson.

(15:11):
Special thanks to Bob and Kathfor sharing their story.
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