The forgotten costs of Alzheimer's Disease

Read all about it: Alzheimer poster
Paolo Comparin

Rant alert. More than £2,300. That's my mother-in-law's care home bill for a month. They actually charge £550 per week so that should be £2,200, shouldn't it? Ah, but they charge by the day, hence the higher price.
Now my gripe isn't with the care home. They have excellent staff and they look after mum-in-law really well while my wife is out of action after breaking her hip [see hip-hip hooray]. Furthermore, their bills are not that high, believe it or not. A new establishment about eight miles away charge more than £800 per week. And many places cost more than a £1,000 each week. Grand. I don't think so.
The government continue to place these charges on elderly people suffering from Alzheimer's Disease. Why, when here in the UK we have a National Health Service that supposedly foots the bill for the ill and infirm?
Alzheimer's is not an in-your-face horrendous disease, initially, like an aggressive form of cancer. No chemotherapy, radiotherapy or clinical trials that can leave a suffer looking - and feeling - like an inmate from Belsen concentration camp. But it can and does turn out that way with severe dementia. It just takes longer.

Campaigner: Sir Terry Pratchett at the South Bank Sky Arts Awards in London
Getty Images via @daylife

And before that stage is reached, the person suffering from Alzheimer's slowly declines into a world of shadows and a jumble of hollow, childhood memories; incapable of knowing the time of day, the month or season, unable to dress properly, to cook, to buy or sell, to reason, to read, to find the right words to complete even the most simple of sentences. Then brief bursts of awareness. They realise what is happening to them. Their pain is almost physical. But those moments of lucidity and illumination, like shafts of bright light in a twilight world, swiftly disappear and all is forgotten. Thank goodness.
It's a nasty, horrible, wicked illness.
The likes of Sir Terence David John Pratchett, author of the Discworld series of comic fantasy books, campaign for greater awareness about Alzheimer's [and choosing to die] after announcing he was suffering from the early onset of the disease in 2007, but more needs to be done. The likes of Alzheimer's Research UK http://www.alzheimersresearchuk.org/ and the Alzheimer's Society http://www.alzheimersresearchuk.org/ need donations because so much research has to be carried out into an illness that affects a high percentage of an ageing society.
We don't expect people to foot the bill when they are treated for cancer so why do we expect dementia sufferers to spend their life savings on their own care?
Smart arse [ass] MPs or government ministers will insist that poor people do not have to pay. That is someone with less than £23,000 in savings and no home to sell.
But what about those people who have worked hard throughout their lives, who have paid their national insurance contributions, who have scrimped, saved, spent wisely and perhaps inherited. Tough luck if you have Alzheimers. Get a relative to look after you or pay for your own care home.
That attitude stinks. It's a bloody disgrace and an indictment of the NHS and our policy-makers. That's not what the NHS is about.
Yet the reality is that this controversial issue comes down to cost. Such a surprise. But how do you put a price on such sensitive subject matter?
According to the Alzheimer's Society, there are more than 800,000 people in the UK with a form of dementia and 17,000 of those are under 65. Break down those figures even more and you will discover that one in 100 have dementia in the 65-69 age group, while it is one in 25 for 70-79-year-olds and one in six if you 80 or over. These figures are official and will rise as our ageing population soars. And what about the many folk who are afraid to admit they have dementia and try to conceal their illness. Or those who simply shrug off the symptoms, don't mention anything to their doctor, saying it is simply part of old age.
Sadly, dementia is something that will touch us all. If you don't suffer from it, then a friend or relative will. So perhaps the government might want to examine this issue because that accounts for an awful lot of votes.
Rant over.
PS: Follow me on Twitter - Fenman@harrysrus
PPS: I would appreciate feedback so please feel free to make constructive comments and remember that by clicking on the adverts next to any post you are also helping to raise money for research into Alzheimer's disease. So keep on clicking.

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MARY KELLY

Meet Amy, the cool cat from Carlow [Ceatharlach] in Ireland. She's a growing girl and needs all the rest she can get. In fact, you might say she enjoys a catnap when the fur isn't flying.
However, from her prone position in the plastic tray, you could be forgiven for thinking that chilled-out Amy is going to seed in the back garden of our good pal Mary.
Amy doesn't do wind, apparently. Indeed, she doesn't do very much at all. But to be fair [should that be fur?] to our feline friend, it was blowing a fair old Irish breeze on the day this photo was taken.
So she opted for the sheltered, vacant bottom shelf of a seed-tray greenhouse used to grow herbs, rather than have her lovely thick coat ruffled by the nasty old wind. If you're a cat, I suppose it's a great way of passing the thyme. In fact, Mary might now want to rename the sage Amy after she was caught dozing among the herbs. What about Rosemary? There's a  suggestion that will probably put the cat among the pigeons.
PS: A big thank-you to Mary for flying over and helping us out for a few days while my wife recovers. Gave me a welcome break from the cooker! True friend. 
Sister-in-law also dropped in from Sydney, via Belgium, and kept little sister amused, as well as cleaning out the goats. Cheers, Caroline.
PPS: Follow me on Twitter - Fenman@harrysrus