Coping with Alzheimer’s

Press, 2 November 1989, Page 7

Coping with Alzheimer’s

By

DEBORAH McPHERSON

Mr Tom Samuel has watched the vibrant woman he married more than 50 years ago pass through various phases of a debilitating dementia that has left him exhausted and saddened at the mental loss of a partner.

Four years ago, Mrs Hilda Samuel was diagnosed as having Alzheimer’s disease.

Caring for an Alzheimer’s disease sufferer was a “36-hour day,” Mr Samuel said. That is the theme of an awareness event today and tomorrow, which will end with a celebration for carers in Christchurch tomorrow evening. Alzheimer’s disease is a progressive, irreversible neurological disorder that eventually renders its victims unable to look after themselves.

For Mrs Samuel, it has meant a gradual memory loss, inability to perform routine tasks and a personality change. At first, Mr Samuel, aged 78, said he ignored symptoms of constant forgetfulness in his wife. “Well, we were both getting on and I just thought it was natural in your old age to forget things.” ! M& Samuel said he knew; something was really wrong when Mrs

Samuel would go to get the milk out of the oven, and constantly feared him leaving her alone. “My wife would also forget things and then get agitated. She became quite childlike, but did not like being treated like one.”

Alzheimer’s disease was not “a lunacy.”

“Sufferers' know that something is wrong, which is why they become frustrated.” Now Mr Samuel has had to admit he cannot cope, and his wife has gone to a rest home. He feels guilty that he has left her, but is confident that she is in the best care.

"I’m free now, but I don’t have a wife. We’ve been together so long, it’s a big chop.” Mr Samuel praised the work of the Alzheimer’s Disease .and Related Disorders society (A.D.A.R.D.S.). He said it was through the society that he learnt how to cope.

The society provided him with sitters—people who could look after Mrs Samuel occasionally to give him a break.

“At first I was a bit reluctant and nervous about bringing a strange woman home, because I wondered what Hilda would say, but up liking them ntbst of the time.” 1