Indian newspapers and magazines have started reporting more news of dementia (especially on days nearer major events like World Alzheimer’s Day or conferences focused on dementia/ Alzheimer’s). Some news articles include descriptions of caregiver experiences.
This page provides links to select media articles available online that include experiences related to caring for a dementia patient in India.
- A tragic story of caregiver daughter and her mother, who had Parkinson’s and dementia
- Early-stage dementia and the inability to handle money and contracts
- Caregiving from a distance
- An instance of an aggressive dementia patient
- When an elderly woman acts like a coy girl
- An engineer with Alzheimer’s
- A mother in her nineties looks after her Alzheimer’s daughter
- An 85-year old writes about his wife’s dementia
- Caregiver experiences from multiple cities in India
- Dementia day care, pet therapy, yoga, comfort in Mumbai
- Improving quality of life even if abilities do not improve
- Some caregiver experiences from Mumbai
- Experience sharing at a Bangalore support group meeting
- Strange behavior leads family to seek diagnosis
A tragic story of caregiver daughter and her mother, who had Parkinson’s and dementia
In December 2010, Express Buzz published a story describing the state of a daughter looking after her ill mother. The daughter, who had been able to get a college education because her mother had worked as a labourer to earn money, was then unable to take up a job because her mother’s care occupied her all day and night. The mother and daughter lived in a thatched hut, and the only money they got was from persons and organisations that understood their plight. Read the story here.
A follow-up story appeared in February 2011, again in Express Buzz, to provide a tragic update. Read it here
Also read Swapna Kishore’s blog entry commenting on how we, as members of society, need to consider our responsibility towards dementia caregivers’ stress and isolation.
Early-stage dementia and the inability to handle money and contracts
A report published in Financial Express in Nov 2010 described a situation where a lawyer’s early dementia was detected because he stopped paying checks and tracking his financial commitments. To quote:
New research shows that one of the first signs of impending dementia is an inability to understand money and credit, contracts and agreements.
The article underlines the need for families to stay alert about such symptoms, and to also financially safeguard against problems caused by them. Read the article: Money woes early clue to Alzheimer’s
Caregiving from a distance
A caregiver living overseas describes how, in spite of living overseas, this caregiver and another sibling living overseas are better informed of the status of the parent in India than a sibling living near the parent.
In the situation described, the local sibling displays a combination of indifference and denial towards the parents’ health conditions. Caregiving is being handled by the overseas siblings who stay in touch with the parents and coordinate the required support. The overseas caregivers make frequent phone calls home, and visit very often. They juggle this along with their lives overseas, and this proves to be very difficult, given their jobs and commitments.
They are managing it…so far. Read the description here.
An instance of an aggressive dementia patient
An article published in The Hindu in September 2010, describes how 67-year-old Shalini Rao (not her real name) used to become aggressive, abusive and violent every time she used the toilet, and what the reason turned out to be. Read the article…
When an elderly woman acts like a coy girl
In this Times Crest article, read about a 70 year old woman who powders her face and giggles because she thinks the “boy’s family” is coming to see her. Also, other such narrations and some expertspeak. The excerpt of the article is available free: . Click here To read the full article, you need to be registered with Times Crest (the registration is free).
An engineer with Alzheimer’s
Rangaswamy, a retired senior engineer in the Indian Railways, is suffering from Alzheimer’s disease. He began showing the symptoms around five years ago, and began exhibiting challenging behaviour the family could not handle. He is now in the advanced stage and being taken care of at a long-term stay facility in Bangalore. According to this report, the retired engineer now finds it difficult to build a house with some plastic blocks, but he keeps trying. Read about him here.
A mother in her nineties looks after her Alzheimer’s daughter
Shefali Choudhury is 92 years old. For several years now, she has been the caregiver for her daughter, Dipikia Basu; Dipika is now in the terminal stage of Alzheimer’s and can no longer communicate or interact. In this September 2010 report in The Telegraph, Shefali describes how her daughter, then in her fifties, began showing dementia symptoms and how she has been cared for all these years. Read the report here.
More description of the case can also be read in a December 2009 article here: Experts warn of dementia epidemic.
An 85-year old writes about his wife’s dementia
“I could not accept that Alzheimer’s could happen to my wife a person who was into quizzing, was an avid reader and was full of life,” says 85-year-old brigadier (retired) SP Bhattarcharjya. In this article, this elderly caregiver describes how his wife deteriorated and how difficult it was for him to adjust to this reality. Read the article here
Caregiver experiences from multiple cities in India
In a detailed article on dementia and related resources in July 2010, Livemint.com published caregiver experiences. A quote:
“We have to be careful of what we’re watching on TV because to him there is no difference between reality and fiction,” says Setlur, who has been a caregiver since 2005.
Dementia day care, pet therapy, yoga, comfort in Mumbai
At a dementia day care centre at Grant Road, Mumbai, patients listen to music, play with pets, do yoga. A report on this centre’s activities described the methods the centre uses to make the patients comfortable and help them socialise. Read the report here: At this dementia day care in Mumbai, pets keep seniors on their toes
Improving quality of life even if abilities do not improve
In an extensive article on dementia in India, the Telegraph includes dementia patient experiences. Read of how a patient’s condition may not have improved by attending day care, but his quality of life has. Click here…
Some caregiver experiences from Mumbai
DNA Mumbai, in this September 2010 article on dementia resources in Mumbai, also describes caregiver experiences. Read the article here.
Experience sharing at a Bangalore support group meeting
Support group meetings offer caregivers an excellent forum to share their experiences and tips. DNA reports one such support group meeting held in Bangalore in July 2010, where caregivers describe the challenging behaviour of patients and the social ostracizing the family faces. Volunteers attending these meetings get to understand the situation better and to see how they can help. Read the coverage here.
Strange behavior leads family to seek diagnosis
In this June 2010 article in Times of India, read about the strange behaviour that led a family to seek a diagnosis for an elder. Experts also explain how diagnosis is poor in India because dementia is confused with old age. To quote:
When asked, around 90 per cent of relatives in Latin American countries said that they did notice a memory problem in their elderly parents or grandparents, which could mark the early onset of dementia, compared to only 25 per cent of Indians who said so.
