Living with Alzheimer’s - Inhuman suffering

THERE are few events as heart-rending as watching a loved one slowly disappear into the suffocating embrace of a fatal, degenerative disease.

Alzheimer’s is one of those relentless, undeniable killers.

Most of us know someone who has had to endure the disease or watch someone try to cope as a partner or a parent faces a long journey with only one destination.

Yesterday’s report from the Alzheimer Society of Ireland (ASI), which points to huge gaps in support services for sufferers of dementia and their carers, is another in the long list of disappointments surrounding our health and social services.

It tells of people more or less abandoned to their fate without the support any civilised society would regard as obligatory.

We may blame our economic crisis for this but if we were to be honest we would acknowledge that this indifference is something much deeper, colder and inhuman.