Elmbridge carer tells toll of vascular dementia (From Your Local Guardian)

Elmbridge carer tells toll of vascular dementia

4:01pm Monday 10th November 2008 in

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It is inevitable that any marriage lasting 53 years will hold many treasured memories. The first dance, the first kiss, the first lovers’ tiff.

But Hersham resident Betty Wagstaff has lost the man she should be looking back on good times with.

Her husband Jim has vascular dementia and his health has deteriorated over the years. At one point Betty cared for him at home but four years ago but it became too much and he was placed in a nursing home.

“I didn’t notice his illness at first, it creeps up on you gradually. He’d forget things and I’d call him a silly old thing, not thinking it was serious,” she said.

“I remember him having a doctor’s appointment and not remembering what he was going for. He was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s at first and given tablets.

“They’d ask me if they were working because they seem to stop talking to patients when they go down that road, which I found very hard.”

At the age of 65 things started to go downhill rapidly

For a while, Jim went to Hersham day centre but, as his condition progressed, they became unable to manage him.

At the age of 65 things started to go downhill rapidly. He started having falls and Betty was left caring for him and putting him to bed at night.

She said: “When I got went to the day centre once they said he had been in the chair the whole day. I told him he had to keep walking until I had him in the chair at home but I couldn’t get his coat off him when he was sitting there.

“It was quite distressing and I had to call an ambulance. I regret doing that because that was the last time I ever had him at home.”

Betty is as devoted to her husband today as she was when she was caring for him at home. She visits every day, rarely taking a day off for herself.

She said: “I have some good friends and they have all been very good to me. Some friends find it very hard to deal with and my children are the same so it’s left down to me.

“But I see some people sitting in the home with no visitors at all and I couldn’t do that to Jim. I like to make sure he’s eating OK and see that he gets his dinner.

“I’ve got out to the car many times and cried my eyes out.”

“He knows my voice because the nurses say he looks around for me when he hears it, but I don’t know if he knows who I am or that I’m his wife.

“It’s very tough when I leave him in the nursing home. There’s a short passageway from his room and I have compose myself as I walk past the other residents and pretend I’m OK. I’ve got out to the car many times and cried my eyes out.”

Betty’s paintings line the walls of her house, but at one point she was close to giving up.

Fortunately friends persuaded her to keep doing the things she loved, and she is still a member of the Women’s Institute, where she was once president.

She said: “It’s like having two different lives when you leave the nursing home. You try to shut off but occasionally it hits you and remember he’s not here anymore.

“This is the emotional side of caring that some people don’t see. I still get upset he’s not here and look at people my age walking down the street and think that could be Jim and I.”

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