Mary-Anne Burdett says her husband, former Essendon captain-coach Geoff Burdett, can no longer speak or understand her as his dementia progresses, and she fears the financial weight of putting him into care.
When Geoff Burdett wakes up each morning, his wife says he’s already trying to tell her things.
But the effort meets a wall. Mary-Anne Burdett has now described the “shocking extent” of Geoff Burdett’s dementia fight, saying he can no longer speak and cannot understand when she tries to explain things to him.
Geoff Burdett, 70, played 37 matches for Essendon between 1976 and 1981, then moved into captain-coaching and led three country football clubs. Today. he is in full-time care with Mary-Anne. and she says her life has been pulled into a struggle not just with his condition. but with the cost of keeping him safe and supported.
Mary-Anne said Burdett suffers from progressive primary aphasia. a type of dementia that can strip people of the ability to speak. write. express their thoughts and understand words. She described his condition in stark. personal terms: “He is just such a typical younger onset [dementia sufferer] because he is so able-bodied but his brain is just frizzled.”.
From the first minutes of the day, she said, he cannot get the words out. “From the minute he wakes up in the morning he is trying to tell me things but he just can’t,” Mary-Anne told News Corp.
She also recalled moments that show how communication has broken down. When she tries to explain things to him, Geoff Burdett is unable to understand. She described how the disorder affected one of the family’s most frightening episodes on the calendar—Mother’s Day weekend. in the Melbourne suburb of Doncaster.
Mary-Anne said Geoff became lost at Westfield shopping centre in Doncaster. She and their daughter couldn’t find him. When Mary-Anne called, he was unable to tell them where he was.
She said she then had to persuade him to hand his phone over to someone who could communicate with her—but Burdett refused.
The couple also faced the reality that his condition can silence him even when he’s supposed to be speaking for other people. Mary-Anne said she felt compelled to deliver a speech on his behalf at a reunion held by the Southern Mallee Giants club. which he coached to a premiership. because he was unable to do so.
Geoff Burdett’s dementia journey has been tied by Mary-Anne to the injuries he carried from football. She said he suffered head knocks while he played. In trying to secure help through formal channels. she assembled medical records from neurologists and speech pathologists who had treated him as she applied for a payout through the AFL Players’ Association’s benefit scheme.
The application was knocked back.
Mary-Anne said the result has sharpened the fear she already holds for what comes next. “You know what I worry about in the future? These homes cost so much money, to put him in care,” she said.
Her worry is paired with a sense of foreboding, not anger. “But when it comes to that stage I won’t want to do it, but I have to do it.”
As a retirement life stretches into a caregiving reality, Mary-Anne said she has also had to pull back from normal plans—making decisions slowly, weighing every step.
“I pull out of a lot of things. I have to think twice about what we are doing and where we are going,” she said.
For fans who remember the Essendon player from 1976 to 1981 and the captain-coach who later won a premiership with the Southern Mallee Giants. the news is heartbreaking in a different way now: Geoff Burdett’s football story hasn’t ended. but his ability to communicate—once central to leadership and coaching—has been taken away by progressive primary aphasia.
Geoff Burdett Mary-Anne Burdett Essendon dementia primary aphasia AFL Players' Association benefit scheme Southern Mallee Giants AFL
This is heartbreaking. Dementia is awful.
Wait so he “can’t speak or understand” and they’re just putting him in care costs like it’s nothing?? Like why isn’t the government covering more of that or whatever
Primary aphasia?? I thought aphasia was like after strokes only. So is this from his football career or they don’t even say? Either way, having him lost at Westfield sounds terrifying, like I would lose it
You can be super able-bodied and then it’s just gone, makes no sense. Also the “younger onset” part… my uncle had memory issues and it ended up being dementia, but nobody told us about any of this talking/word stuff, just “confusion.” I feel bad for the wife though, because care costs are brutal and somehow everyone acts like family can do it for free. Bet they’ll blame it on football concussion or something even if they can’t prove it, like always.