Tag Archives: Older care

The unending grief of the dementia carer

Just as I was about to post this week’s blog I set it aside in favour of another.   I did so because of a remarkable interview on Radio 4 between John Humphrys, the Today programme’s resident Rottweiler, and Denise Stevens, who cares for her husband Mike, who has dementia.It’s only a few months since I devoted a blog to another Humphrys’ interview in which two people with dementia, and their spouses (and  carers) were given the prime-time 8.10am slot to explain what it was really like to live with the condition.   I described this as a significant step towards normalising dementia.

So I hesitated before inflicting John Humphrys, Radio 4 and the Today programme on anyone yet again – it hardly seems fair.  But it was such an insightful, moving piece that I felt compelled to do so, particularly as it has just been revealed that those with dementia and their unpaid family carers shoulder two-thirds of the staggering £26 billion that the condition costs this country every year.

Dementia care will reach many

 Actress and comedian Helen Lederer speaks.

Picture: DENISE BRADLEY

Friday, September 12, 2014
6:30 AM

With one in three over-65s expected to die with dementia, Kim Briscoe finds out how we are caring for the growing number of people with the condition.

It can be a bewildering and frustrating condition, in which carers are put under an enormous strain and family members see the person they once knew disappear bit by bit.

With more and more people expected to be diagnosed with dementia, it poses a huge challenge to our health and social care system.

New research says many carers have reached ‘breaking point’

Carers are “pushed to the brink,”

First published 01:35 Thursday 11 September 2014 in Bradford Bradford Telegraph and Argus: Photograph of the Author by Rob Lowson, T&A Reporter

MANY people acting as carers for older or disabled loved ones have reached “breaking point”, new research has revealed.

A study of more than 5,000 carers by the charity Carers UK has found that six out of ten are being “pushed to the brink,” with a quarter requiring some form of medical treatment due to their role, 63 per cent suffering from depression, and 79 per cent from some form of anxiety.