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Dementia expert Henry Brodaty says the fight against dementia receives "too little" from government. Rather than waiting for a miracle drug, he’s urging government to resource new ways of fighting the disease now.

Professor Brodaty says simply adopting a national dementia risk reduction program could save billions by slashing health care costs and slowing the rapidly growing number of people with the disease.

Speaking in Canberra yesterday, the Professor told the National Press Club a simple dementia prevention trial had already shown the onset of dementia could be delayed by more than a year.

Led by the Centre of Healthy Brain Ageing, where Brodaty is a director, the trial included personalised coaching in physical activity and nutrition. He says even this relatively simple training had been shown to significantly slow progression and delay onset of the disease.

Brodaty says a national scheme similar to the centre's personalised coaching model would shave billions of dollars off the spiralling costs of treatment and care.

The personal effect of dementia was illustrated as Brodaty was introduced to speak, as the compare revealed her father had just been diagnosed with the disease. She said there were “no longer 433,300 Australians currently living with dementia, but 433,301”.

This numbers is expected to more than double by mid-century and become the leading cause of death and a major disability and disease burden.

Brodaty was reluctant, however, to consider any change that might extend the NDIS to people above 65. He stuck, instead, to repeating the simple old advertising jingle used years ago to encourage the use of sunscreen to prevent cancer.

“Australians urgently needs the ‘slip, slop, slap’ of brain health”, Brodaty insisted.