Memory is a boon, forgetting is a curse. All such silly platitudes vanish in to thin air when you think of or come face to face with patients suffering with Alzheimer's because in such mindscapes, memory itself is forgotten.
Alzheimer's is a truly painful dis-ease. It is indeed dis-ease because the patients lose their selves, their very identity, so to say. Dementia is a shade more tolerable because it is manageable. Alzheimer's is not. Such patients do not remember anything or anyone, including immediate family. Much worse is the fact that they forget themselves.
What causes Alzheimer's? The brain chemistry of this auto-immune dis-ease is surely, though slowly, getting unravelled. Hopefully then, medicines would emerge as well. Right now, this dis-ease, on the rise even in the so-called developing countries, is tough both on the patient and the caregiver from the immediate family.
Possibly such patients can never be left to the heartless carelessness of the paid para-medical staff. Ideally, the entire family should be involved in taking care of such patients, and out of sheer gratitude for what the patient, when she/he was a 'person', did for you. Primarily, there must be an acute control of/over their movements because they can just walk out, and then completely lose their moorings.
Hope the medical technology manages ASAP to cure this dis-ease which is a desert of oblivion. May it soon turn in to a h(e)aven!
Pratima@On the World Alzheimer's Day, a heartfelt prayer for sure, and fast, in fact, urgent, remedies!
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