Northerner
Admin (Retired)
- Relationship to Diabetes
- Type 1
Major triumphs often come from small and modest first steps and a cry from the heart. In November, barely eight weeks ago, Nicci Gerrard wrote about her father, a former GP and businessman, John Gerrard. He had suffered from dementia for several years since his mid-70s, before entering hospital in February 2014, aged 86, with leg ulcers. He was admitted, the author and journalist wrote, “strong, mobile, healthy, continent, reasonably articulate and cheerful”. Five weeks later, after an outbreak of norovirus meant his family could see him only infrequently, he emerged “skeletal, incontinent, immobile, incoherent, lost”.
In a hospital ward, if a person with dementia is “left to himself”, however good the medical care, then the fragile anchor that is embedded in what is familiar, safe and recognised is abruptly pulled up. “At his time of need,” Gerrard wrote, “we didn’t rescue him. We let him go.”
http://www.theguardian.com/society/2015/feb/14/dementia-voice-sufferers-campaign-awareness
In a hospital ward, if a person with dementia is “left to himself”, however good the medical care, then the fragile anchor that is embedded in what is familiar, safe and recognised is abruptly pulled up. “At his time of need,” Gerrard wrote, “we didn’t rescue him. We let him go.”
http://www.theguardian.com/society/2015/feb/14/dementia-voice-sufferers-campaign-awareness