Showing results for "man" in Alzheimer's & Dementia

Leaving London to return home to rural South Wales, Robyn finds that it's her old life - same teddy bears resting on her pillow, their bodies tucked under the duvet; same view of the garages behind which she'd had her first cigarette and first kiss - but so much has changed. Her dad, the proud, charmingly intelligent self-made man who made people laugh, was in the grip of early onset Alzheimer's. His brilliant mind, which saw him building power stations and literally bringing light into the lives of others, had succumbed to darkness.

When Simon McDermott first noticed his dad Ted's sudden flares of temper and fits of forgetfulness, he couldn't have guessed what lay ahead. Then came the devastating, inevitable diagnosis. As Ted retreated into his own world, Simon and his mum, Linda, desperately tried to reach him until at last: an idea. Turning the ignition in his mum's little run-around, Simon hit 'play' on Ted's favourite song, 'Quando Quando Quando'.

Dementia is an unmaking, a de-creation - an apocalypse of meaning. Since my father's slow-motion dying and his actual death in November 2014, I have been much preoccupied with dementia: by those who have it, by those who look after them, by the hospital wards whose beds are occupied by those in advanced stages of this self-loss, by the way society denies it, by the science of it, the art and literature about it, the philosophy, by what it means to be human, to have an identity. What is it to be oneself, and what is it to lose one's self?

No one teaches us how to grow old. It just happens. Sometimes quickly, like with an illness or injury. Then, we feel our age quickly. Sometimes slowly, like a change in hair color to shades of gray or shades of bald. Whether quickly or slowly, there are always surprises. Some pleasant, some painful. The joy or sadness of growing old usually rests with our perception and expectations.