Caring Women & Dementia

In many ways I was fortunate to be born a "baby boomer" immediately post the 2nd world war. I expected to have a career after college, not just a job. I considered marriage an equal partnership - (not sure I got that quite right - husband never did clean the bathroom, cook a meal or do the ironing!) I couldn't wait to get back to my career when my daughter was old enough to go to nursery & because I was a teacher the authority was desperate to have me back. I juggled all the plates in the air for years, so "had it all".

That all meant job security, a comfortable middle class lifestyle, a home of our own & ultimately a good pension.

But in one important way I don't think I was fortunate. I almost single handedly looked after my home & immediate family. Then when I retired on health grounds I had to look after my widowed father who became very ill & suffered from mild dementia. He finally died aged 89. After he died I looked after my widowed mother in law who also suffered from mild dementia & died aged 92. It could have been worse, it could have been all 4 parents. Life expectancy has risen over my lifetime. Had he lived, I might well have had to look after my husband who was older than me. I am currently trying to move closer to my daughter so I can play a part in caring for my grandchildren.

Women are, and have always been, "carers". Mostly we do what comes naturally & put ourselves last in the pecking order. Now, seemingly we are part of government policy because they have realised that we save them money - a huge amount of money. There is a movement afoot to avoid putting patients with dementia in care homes or hospitals. So lip service is being paid to "carers" needs.

I wonder how much thought the present young, predominantly male, leading politicians have given to this. Caring for your loved one with dementia is bad enough. Caring for someone who is no longer the person you married & has double incontinence in later stage dementia must be a living nightmare. The carers themselves are mostly elderly & many will have health issues of their own. Even if they don't, they probably don't have the physical strength or resiliance to care for someone 24 / 7. I doubt there should even be an expectation that they can / should be doing it. But they probably will go on trying, because they loved the person their partner once was & would feel guilty if they didn't. The burden of guilt & unreasonable expectations can be intolerable & unsustainable for women in particular.

So, we have an ageing population living a lot longer. This saga isn't going to get better. Dementia is progressive & incurable. We do need to look seriously at this as a society, because one day, the chances are, it will be each one of us in this situation. We need to look at the needs  of carers & the barriers to those needs being met.

Most of all we need to stop assuming that elderly women will do it for us on their own.