Joanna Keen

is different.

When I say that your orange day shift is approaching, he replies, when?

What time?

He's looking forward to it.

I wonder, though, if he can still do this, especially with his dementia symptoms progressing.

With an aging and shrinking population, Japan faces a major dementia challenge.

The Ministry of Health estimates that more than 5 million people will be affected by dementia by 2030.

By 2060, one in three elderly Japanese people is expected to struggle with cognitive decline.

And in a country where many of the elderly live alone, isolation only makes things worse.

Japan has increasingly turned to technology, especially robots, to help tackle its dementia crisis.

But in this tiny cafe, it's the human connection that makes the real difference.

Memories may slip here, but hope, humour and dignity are still very much on the menu.

Anyone who has a pet dog will say they're a huge part of the family, but for one man in Northern Ireland, his golden retriever saved his life.

Hannah and Adam Cook were asleep upstairs when Hannah was woken by their dog Polly barking.

She found her 37-year-old husband Adam was breathing strangely next to her, and then he stopped breathing completely.

Adam had suffered a cardiac arrest but survived thanks to Hannah's CPR and the help of an ambulance.

Now Polly has been honoured as a CPR Hero by the charity, the British Heart Foundation.

Hannah and Adam spoke to The Happy Pod's Vanessa Heaney and started by explaining what happened that night.

In March 2024, we went to bed as normal on a Monday night and I woke up at about 1am to Polly barking below me.

So I just jumped up and sort of tried to work out what was going on and he was completely unresponsive.