TY - JOUR T1 - A carer's lament JF - British Journal of General Practice JO - Br J Gen Pract SP - 148 LP - 149 VL - 56 IS - 523 AU - Anissa Baldwin Y1 - 2006/02/01 UR - http://bjgp.org/content/56/523/148.abstract N2 - The consultant to whom our GP had referred my wife said it was vascular dementia. This is said to affect a different part of the brain from Alzheimer's disease. Fifty years ago it would have been just senility. To the carer, in regard to the patient's behaviour, it's all the same thing, endlessly bewildering, aggravating, patience-exhausting. It helps to have a sense of humour. To a prospective carer who might be short in that department my advice is DON'T DO IT — but the chances are that you won't have a choice.After a couple of years the family thought I was looking a bit battered and urged me to take some respite. I had heard about a BUPA care home nearby and went to look it over. I was very impressed and thought it would be an agreeable place for my wife to stay for an occasional visit and booked a room for her for 1 week. There was much discussion about how to get her there because we all knew it was going to be difficult. We eventually devised a plan whereby there would be no mention to her in advance and I was going to explain things to her after breakfast on the morning of departure. I would then take her there accompanied by one of the carers who has been helping with bathing and so on for over a year and is very experienced and makes her laugh.It was a dreadful morning. When she had grasped that she would be staying there without me she refused to go and there was a terrible scene. In desperation I rang our son in London and he came down hotfoot. Fifty-five years old, and a man of the world, in his mother's eyes he can do no wrong. … ER -