Radio Australia Today Editorial

Alzheimer’s Disease. It’s touched a nerve.

30 October 2009

Earlier this week I spoke on the program with Vivienne Ulman, whose mother was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s Disease. Vivienne shared her journey with me on the program, and as someone who has a mother with dementia, it resonated with me. Vivienne told of how she had suspected for years that something was amiss with her mother, especially when her mother started forgetting simple things.

Then came the official diagnosis and that was the start of the real journey for Vivienne. It’s one thing when you suspect, but another when you find it is true. Vivienne started viewing her mother in a different way, and in a way she started mourning the loss of the strong woman that she had known all her life.

There are, in these situations, times when the child laments the loss of the life that they knew, and often are the times when they are upset at the unfairness of it all.

But if you are lucky, you come to a realisation that although life will now be different, it can be a fulfilling and wonderful life, just as wonderful as it was before your mother got ill. In my case, my mother’s dementia transformed her from a strong but slightly nervous woman into someone happier. Our times together since her stroke have been joyful. Of course I know that her time on this planet is limited now, but we have a relationship that has the same joy that it had when I was a child, before I grew into a diffident teen.

It surprised me that my journey and Vivienne’s were so parallel. And in the days after our chat we have had plenty of emails from listeners saying that their experience was similar and that the discussion resonated with them also.

That sort of connection is what everyone on radio aims for. Thanks for sharing your stories.

- Phil Kafcaloudes