Facing dementia without a diagnosis is crushing. A new program in Kenya offers help

It's a part of getting older that many people worry about: The increased chance of developing diseases like Alzheimer's that cause dementia.

In wealthy countries, getting an early diagnosis can at least help a person's family understand and support them and sometimes get them on medications that can ease their symptoms.

In lower income countries, many people with dementia don't get that chance – suffering needlessly as their condition goes unrecognized.

Now there's an effort to change that in rural Kenya.

A 'problem of forgetting'

To give a sense of the dimension of the challenge there, a community health volunteer named Susan Mutua leads me through an orange grove to a small, concrete block house belonging to a widow named Joyce Mutisya.

Mutisya, who is 71, is full of laughter as she teaches me the proper greeting in the local language, called Kamba.

But her mood turns sad as