Eighty-five-year-old Denis cares for his wife who is in the advanced stages of Alzheimer’s but he still finds time to help 75-year-old Kath whose husband is suffering from Vascular Dementia. Kath, aged 75, suffers from Osteoporosis and has finally asked social servces for help in caring for a man of more than 14 stone who can no longer walk and is doubly incontinent.
In several months Kath will have to put her husband of fifty years into a home - a decision which will mean the rapid depletion of the savings they have spent a lifetime accumulating.
“Sometimes I feel like screaming in the dark,” says Kath. “I try hard to remain patient but it is hard with so little sleep and so little help.”
I don’t know about you but surely this can’t be right. The hallmark of a civilised society is in the treatment of its elderly citizens. Something has gone wrong somewhere. No-one is listening to to the silent scream because everyone is turning a blind eye.
Kath’s friend is 75-years-old. Recently her husband smashed her over the head with his fist. She couldn’t get him into bed and he grew frustrated with her efforts. No-one is really at fault but despite his age he packs a still powerful punch.
“You cannot imagine the frustration I feel,”says Kath. “It is like having a baby who weighs twice as much as you do and who will never get better.”
It was a battle for Kath to get respite care. She tried for several months and finally got a week off earlier this year. Her next break won’t be until the Autumn…..if she gets that far.
Last week she could not get the right incontinence pads. A supply of the better quality pads dwindled to nothing because they were too expensive for the local PCT. She struck lucky when she discovered another friend’s husband with dementia had died recently from a chest infection so she drove round and picked up his supply.
Can you imagine her life? Sometimes I can but then I am her daughter and even I don’t fully appreciate what it is like to wake up night after night and scream in the dark.
This week we heard medical science could do no more for my father. He shows symptoms of Parkinson’s disease but not the pure form of the condition. The appropriate drug for this condition would not work and would disrupt the existing medication that helps control his paranoia and dementia.
He and my mother returned home to what the experts call a micro environment. That is, a dining room that now houses a hospital bed, a hoist and a commode. A wheelchair stands idly by unless friends, relatives or carers can find the energy - and sometimes ingenuity - to lift my father into it. Nevertheless the door is always locked because of the supremely unlikely risk that my father gathers the strength and the cognitive ability to lurch through the front door.
At least our priest can come to the house to offer him communion…..thank Heavens for large mercies.
As a journalist I interviewed Roy Lilley at the end of last year. He is a perceptive and forthright commentator on the NHS and was himself an effective PCT manager for many years. He has some ideas on how to start solving the situation. We intend giving them an airing soon. Keep reading. Recent calculations say dementia will rise by at least 74 per cent over the next ten years. We have seen an economic explosion go off but it is nothing to the damage which will be caused by our demographic explosion. We may not be listening to the silent scream right now but we are all sure to hear the cries of distress when that one goes off.