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My grandma was diagnosed with dementia and it was a very quick down fall from there, it wasn’t long until she didn’t know who i was , asking who I was as I sat across the table from her.
It wasn’t long until she couldn’t be left on her own. The experience is different for everyone but for us as a family it was quick.

I adored my mother and the feeling was entirely mutual. Every childhood memory I have involves her whether it was washing/bathing us, dressing us, meal times or homework, sitting on her knee with her arms around me was the safest place on earth.

Not that our Father wasn’t in the picture - he was a product of the time and once he’d handed over his wage on Fridays, that was his input done!

Wendy had a wicked sense of humour and could punctuate egos with a well aimed and expertly executed put-down. Her raucous laugh was legendary. She was always the first up at family get-togethers with a song or would bop to Rock and Roll tunes, harking back to her teenage years in the ‘50s, until she could dance no more.

The house, during our childhood in the 1970s, still echoed to the sounds of Elvis, Bill Hailey, Eddie Cochran and Billy Fury not forgetting Brenda Lee or Connie Francis!

At 55, I am now a year older than when Mam was diagnosed with Vascular Dementia. A psychiatric nurse explained to us that “dementia won’t kill your Mother but her immune system will weaken and she’ll succumb to pneumonia” which was quite a hammer blow once tests were concluded to determine why Mam was being so forgetful.

People who knew the once vibrant and chatty Wendy saw her dry up mid conversation and look to my Dad to be rescued from the situation. She even told me, over the phone, that she’d had a breakdown. I disagreed which ended up with her slamming the phone down and having to call her back to apologise - the path of least resistance as we’d been advised, to lessen her confusion. Whether she genuinely believed this or thought that it would garner more sympathy than “I don’t know my own mind nowadays” we will never know.

One by one, we saw her faculties leave her. The simplest things like counting money or signing her name went, never to return. My Dad, despite being seven years her senior and in poor health himself soldiered on beyond what I thought was possible but it was a joint decision to put her in a residential home where she needed 24 hour care.

Her decline worsened with each visit to the point that she could neither recognise us nor converse with us. However, she still enjoyed listening to her Rock and Roll favourites.

She regressed, as all sufferers do, to being a child where she had to be fed, washed and clothed by carers. They honestly deserve a medal.

During the early days of July 2005, we stood in the day room watching TV (as staff made Mam comfortable) following the aftermath of the 7/7 bombings that took place in London. She passed away peacefully on 13th July aged 63.

I have many vivid memories of Wendy, including the confused shell of a woman she became but I always smile when I speak or think about her - which is almost daily - as her memory as a wonderful mother, wife and friend are far more in keeping with her generosity of spirit.

Dementia, in its many forms, is known as a living death and I honestly wouldn’t wish it on my worst enemy.

I’m glad that nowadays, it is spoken about in far broader terms and that the myriad of help - from the Sitting Service and respite homes/hospitals allowing the partners’ a little breathing space to cope - are far greater publicised.

My lovely mum, Jenni, was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s in 2016, just before her 65th birthday.

For a good few years, mum lived well with dementia. She was forgetful and often repeated herself but other than that the progress of the illness was slow. She was still mum.

That was until my dad was diagnosed with terminal cancer in September 2020. Mum began to get worse. She would regularly see other another man in the house, would go to the shop multiple times in a day and started getting up at night to pack to go ‘home’. It upset us all but especially my dad who was very poorly and slowly losing his ‘Jen’ who he had been married to for 51 years.

It was all still manageable though until my dad died in June 2021. After that mum suddenly deteriorated. We often say it was like ‘she went off a cliff’. Within days she had forgotten dad had died and constantly asked where he was. She was still seeing people- she would become anxious that there were strangers in the garden. She would forget to eat or end up giving it to the birds. We tried to keep her at home as long as we could though. My sister, brother and I would check in on her in the morning and at night and we also employed carers through the day. However we were getting constant calls from people in the village telling us mum was confused and upset and eventually she started wandering at night. With the three of us all working full time there was no way we could keep her safe anymore.

So in November 2021, we took the painful decision to move her into a care home. We managed to find somewhere nearby which we were happy with and mum settled quite well. She just thought she was on holiday most of the time. Mum has been there 3 years now and her Alzheimer’s has progressed on to late stage. She is incontinent, her speech is going and she spends her days wandering the corridors with baby dolls. She doesn’t really know me and my siblings, or her lovely grandchildren, but I think she understands that somehow we are important to her. We get a big smile and a hug when we see her but there is very little conversation anymore.

Alzheimer’s is incredibly cruel. I’ve lost my mum and I miss her so much but in everyone’s eyes she’s still there. Only families who have experienced losing someone in this way can truly understand.

It’s all so unfair.

My wonderful mum doesn’t deserve this end to her life. Jenni was a bubbly, sociable, incredibly dignified lady, who never went out without make up. She loved to travel and visited so many different countries. She was a fantastic mum to us three. She was devoted to her grandchildren, who in turn adored her.

She had a really great life but now she doesn’t remember any of it.

This photo is one of my favourites of my mum. It really shows the kind of person she was- smiley, friendly, just lovely. I often show the carers photos of mum before Alzheimer’s took hold as I think it’s good for them to see her as she was before this horrible illness took everything away.

Our beloved mum Sylvia passed away in 2013. She sadly suffered with Alzheimer’s/ Vascular Dementia for around 5 years. Having lost our wonderful dad Walter in 2009 my sister Christine & I looked after mum along with going to work which was a little easier as we all lived together. We took mum on holidays and she went into respite sometimes so we could have a separate holiday. At first we were coping but then it got difficult leaving mum alone during the day, and at night she would get up at all hours. We didn’t realise how much affect it was having on us but I know there were a lot of tears. The worst was when mum didn’t recognise me and thought I was a carer. My job was as a HCA actually. Eventually we had to make the decision to place mum in a home, but the guilt we both felt was so bad. We felt we had let our beloved dad down as well as mum. After a couple of weeks mum was so angry and confused it was so hard seeing her like that. She was given medication but that made her too sleepy but after a few more weeks she calmed down. She actually recognised us again as her daughters whilst in there so that was a bonus. Mum was in the home for about 8 months, but we found as she deteriorated they didn’t seem to have the time to care for her properly. Being left to sit in wet underwear was unacceptable. I just wish you were given more time to choose a place for your loved one but we were only given one choice. Mum had a slight stroke and was taken to hospital and sadly passed away there a month later. It took my sister and I a long time to stop feeling guilty about placing mum in a home but we didn’t know of any other help available and we realise we couldn’t have coped on our own any longer. We only think of the happy times we had now and there were many of those.

Mum died of dementia in 2021.
We had slowly lost her over a 9 year period. It’s heartbreaking when your mum doesn’t even know you.
We were lucky to have a good care company, but there was no other help.
I asked social services, my mums GP and my MP. Nothing.
Mums GP would not do home visit over 80 checks once I couldn’t get her out of the house.
Absolutely no help. No clubs, no respite for me, no support.
I travelled a 68 miles round trip between once and 6 days a week,
I did mums cleaning ,shopping, financial affaires, personal care appointments and emotional support.
When mum was dying I asked for continuing care. The form was done by a community matron. Then nothing. Mum died 3 weeks later. When she passed my brother, sister and I stayed with her for the last 4 days 24/7.
No visit from GP or any other services.only the carers.
Mum was a hard working, loving, giving person, but when she needed help she was abandoned by the inadequate systems that should have helped.
Everytime someone I know or meet tells my they have someone newly diagnosed with dementia my heart goes out to them. As I know they are in for a hell of a time.

Covid wrecked my relationship with my husband. Unable to get help from GP I had a physical and mental breakdown. As a result my husband was taken into care as a vulnerable adult. I did not see him for 5 months and he no longer recognised me or his puppy! He lost weight and was bullied in the care home! He becamedoubly incontinent as he did not have an en suite room and annoyed other residents with his whistling! He was attacked by other residents and I was able to move him nearer my home! I am a part time widow … visiting a man who sees me as the lady with chocolate!

What can I say, as a family we watched this disease strip our mother, my children’s Nan of everything she once was. My mum had Lewys Body which cruelly robbed her of being the strong, feisty, talk a glass eye to sleep woman that she was. It started with hearing things that weren’t there, this escalated to thinking people were coming to burn her house down. She then started falling, losing the ability to walk, we fought hard to have carers come to help as we were all struggling as a family. It took her voice she’d sit silent with tears down her face. She was diagnosed in March 2020 everyday we lost a piece of her until it took her Boxing Day 2022. My Sister, my daughters and I all held her hand as she took her last breath. This disease is cruel and doesn’t just kill the person but their loved ones with it, more needs to be done in the way of research and facilitating the disease for all involved. We fought for her medication when it wasn’t effective anymore, help from professional services and even equipment. It felt like a battle even to get incontinence aids, it shouldn’t be that way. As a family we are all now worried that the same fate awaits us, as much as we are told it’s not hereditary no one is certain. I hope that changes are made to help with this soul destroying disease.

Nick was 55 when he was diagnosed with dementia and it has devastated our whole family.
His employer knew so little about the condition, they made him redundant with no compassion or understanding.
I had to give up work in my early 40s to care for Nick. Alzheimer’s has not just taken his life away. It’s taken mine too.
His mother died and we couldn’t even tell him, because he didn’t know who she was anymore.
It’s not just about people forgetting where they’ve put their keys, it chips away slowly and takes all the memories you’ve made together.
The support just isn’t there and too many people are left, struggling alone with little or no knowledge of how to cope.
More needs to be done to protect future dementia sufferers and their loved ones.

I looked after my parents and my husband.My mum had vascular dementia and both my dad and husband had Alzheimers and vascular dementia.Over a period of twenty years. When my parents were diagnosed little seemed to be know and carers were not aware of how to help people with dementia.When my husband was diagnosed he knew what he was facing but could not come to terms with it and was in denial and would not accept any outside help.
We were together 62 years when he died and we had grown up together from the ages of 14 & 16. Luckily I had a great GP to help the very difficult years before he died and support for me after. I try to support Alzheimer’s as much as possible as more research is desperately needed to stop other families going through those very difficult times. It is a cruel illness not only for the patient but all family members and friends.My husband died two and a half years ago.It is like grieving twice for the person you knew and loved and the person they have become but for them they die so many times.!! Not recognising family members. Not being able to drive.Not wanting to socialise. Needing help to wash and dress . Not being able to do the things they once loved etc etc and just live a normal life.