Written by admin on 2009-04-02T04:19:32+0000">April 2, 2009 – 4:19 am
The onset of dementia in a person changes all sorts of roles within the family, from the more obvious ‘children caring for parents’ situation to that in which a spouse has to take on the role traditionally undertaken in their family by the sufferer until he or she became ill. The role of physical carer can be a particularly difficult one to cope with; as the dementia progresses of course, the level of care needed will become greater, not less.
For most older people it has been traditional for the husband to run the family’s financial affairs. Many older women have little idea of the complexity of what often seemed like simple financial details. Similarly, for a man to have to take on the role of the housewife, the cooking, cleaning, shopping, washing, and so on, can prove very difficult. All these activities are simple if you have been doing them for forty or fifty years so that they have become second nature. To have to start from scratch and learn to undertake your spouse’s role, as well as carry on with your own, and at the same time adjust to all the emotional and other problems of caring for a person with dementia, is a pretty tall order and I sometimes marvel at how well most people cope. To those of us on the outside, preparing a meal or checking a bank statement seems simple, and on their own they may be, but one has to remember that all this must be viewed in the overall context of the impact that dementia makes not just on the sufferer, but on the family too.
Of all the problems that arise it is often the role reversal between child and parent that creates most difficulty. Some children find it very nearly impossible to help one of their parents undertake the basic activities of life, such as washing and bathing, going to the toilet, and cleaning up afterwards. On the other hand, as far as spouses are concerned, one has to remember that it is easier to learn how to undertake practical tasks than it is to take on responsibility for making important decisions that may affect the future. It is up to individual members of a family to learn to help each other in circumstances like this. What may be a monumentally difficult task for an older person to take on, may be of little consequence to a younger member of the family or to a brother or sister living near by. A son, for instance, could shop for parents as well as himself or take responsibility for financial matters. It is also possible to get help from the statutory services with some of the more practical tasks such as keeping the house clean and preparing food. Talk to other people who have managed to cope with a similar experience; they may well be able to point the way ahead.
Finally, it is important not to underestimate the effect that this role reversal has upon the sufferers. They may experience an acute sense of failure when they realize they can no longer undertake a task adequately and that someone else has taken on responsibility for it. Whenever possible, continue to involve them for as long as is practical. They may then still feel part of the system and if you can sustain this approach for long enough, the point at which they can no longer be involved may occur at a stage in the illness when they are also unlikely to realize what has happened or be able to worry about it.
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