Fiona Phillips (January 2009):
A few weeks ago, my dad was found by police wandering around Portsmouth in the middle of the night, in the freezing cold, unable to remember his home address.
Why?
Because my dad has Alzheimer's. It's an incurable and degenerative brain disease that afflicts more than 400,000 people in this country - and it is terminal.
I should know.
Two years ago, my mum died of Alzheimer's, after a long and painful battle. She was one of the 15,000 people in Britain who develop symptoms before the age of 65. I will always remember, in those final days, keeping vigil at her bedside, watching as she thrashed and screamed, unaware of where she was or what was happening.
So my father's diagnosis with the same condition, only months later, came as a shock. I should have recognised the signs earlier, but when my dad started behaving oddly, I tried to explain it away as his way of grieving for my mum. I simply couldn't believe it was happening again.
When I finally realised how ill he had become, I moved him from his house in Wales to a semi-independent flat for the elderly in Portsmouth. My uncle Barry now looks in on him three times a week, and I visit him on the weekends. But his condition is deteriorating and he finds everyday tasks difficult. Even making a cup of tea can be a struggle.
I feel terribly guilty. Moving him nearer to me in London would disorientate him further and I know he doesn't want to go into a care home. So I'm torn.
There are thousands of carers in this country who face a similar dilemma - they are perhaps the hidden victims of Alzheimer's.
Two-thirds of those with the disease are looked after in their own homes and, with one in five people over 80 having Alzheimer's or some form of dementia, most carers tend to be partners or spouses and many are elderly and frail themselves.
These unpaid carers are thought to save the economy around £6 billion every year. They include people like Alex McNab, who I met in the process of making this Dispatches. Alex is an 83-year-old pensioner who now spends the entirety of his retired life caring for his wife, Peggy, who is in the advanced stages of Alzheimer's. Peggy can no longer walk or climb the stairs, and has to sleep in a bed in the kitchen. Alex and Peggy's daughter, Julie, worries about her father's health almost as much as she does about her mother's. "There is going to come a point when dad will not be able to cope; to do this on a 24-hour, 7-day-a-week basis," she says. "Dad's 83 now and will be 84 in March, he's got high blood pressure and so you have to think about his health needs as well."
As the population ages, and the Alzheimer's epidemic spreads, families across Britain are being overwhelmed. Dispatches asked YouGov to carry out a survey of more than 750 carers - eighty per cent of them said they were dependant on families for help. Less than half - 49% - said they get help from social services.
Funding is a real problem. Nearly two thirds of councils have now decided to fully fund care only when elderly people are at substantial risk. This means that around 150,000 sufferers in this country have to entirely fund their own care.
The lack of access to medication doesn't help either. The Department of Health's advisory body, NICE, has decided that people in the early stages of the disease shouldn't receive Alzheimer's drugs like Aricept on the grounds that they are not cost-effective. It's a decision described to me by leading old-age psychiatrist Dr David Wilkinson as "pretty scandalous". I can't help but agree with him.
At last, however, the Government has at least acknowledged the scale of this problem. They have drawn up a National Dementia Strategy to improve diagnosis, co-ordinate treatment and care, and raise public awareness. But the launch of the strategy has been postponed twice. It was supposed to be finally announced later this week - but so far there has been no confirmation.
They continue to say that this disease is now a priority for the government, for the NHS and for social care. Let's hope it is. It may be too late for my mother, but there is still time for my dad and thousands of other sufferers like him - if, that is, the government keeps it promise.
Further reading:
The Observer - Fiona Phillips hails Alzheimer's "heroic" carers
The Telegraph - Fiona Phillips condems the Government over Alzheimer's
