TOI : Alzheimer’s patients need day-care centres : Sept 21, 2007
WORLD ALZHEIMER’S DAY
Alzheimer’s patients need day-care centres
TIMES NEWS NETWORK
Mumbai: When the diagnosis of dementia is handed out to an aged relative,
bring out that longforgotten pack of cards. The Ace of Diamonds and the King
of Hearts have a way of keeping the progressively degenerating brain active
for some more time. Or get the patient to sort potatoes from onions in your
weekly shopping bag. Mumbai’s doctors like Sion Hospital’s chief
psychiatrist Nilesh Shah have many such practical prescriptions, yet the
city has little to offer in terms of an A-to-Z care for patients with
dementia.
“There isn’t even awareness about this problem,” admits Dr S C Gupta,
state additional director general of health who had recently organised a
workshop
on the subject. “It is unfortunately written off as a natural progression of
ageing.”
Dementia is a disorder of the aged that progressively impairs function
of the brain. Alzheimer’s disease is one of the main reasons for dementia,
affecting between 2 and 3% of people in the 65-69 age group. It begins with
memory lapses-not the everyday kind of misplacing things, but, say, putting
the iron in the fridge and not remembering that one had done that-and
progresses to personality problems, and eventually leads to complete loss of
body functions such as swallowing.
“When a patient is diagnosed with Alzheimer’s, the consulting doctor
would judging from hisher financial capability, direct the family to
various physio or occupational therapists to help,” admits Dr Urvarshi Shah
from KEM Hospital, Parel. Families that can’t afford such services are left
to take round-theclock care of the patients.
Considering that India will turn into a grey nation with over 50% of its
population being aged by the year 2050, the burden of dementia on society
can be immense, fear public health experts. “In Alzheimer’s disease, the
caregivers, who, in India, are mainly family members, suffer great
psychological trauma as well,” says Dr Charles Pinto from Nair Hospital,
Mumbai Central.
Three months ago, the state had invited an NGO called Nightingales from
Bangalore to outline its caregiving programme. “We will study the Bangalore
model which involves public-private partnership and see if it could work in
Maharashtra,” says Gupta.
The Bangalore experiment began on a modest scale about a decade back.
With the aim of providing relief for caregivers, Dr Radha Murthy cobbled
together a team of doctors, occupational therapists, speech therapists,
physiotherapists and nurses, among others, to provide careat-the-doorsteps
of the ailing.
The Nightingale infrastructure has three tiers-home-based care from a
group of visiting specialists; day-care centres where specialists run 9-to-5
programme of rehabilitation exercises; and an institutionalised care centre
that is on the anvil for those who are way beyond help. “Families hang on to
such patients out of a sense of guilt, but it is time the Indian society
accepted that institutionalised care could be the best for patients who are
beyond help,” believes Dr Murthy, who runs these programmes on land given
by the civic corporation.
The Nightingale programme spans a radius of 6 km and covers 2,500
patients. Dr Pintobelieves there is a great need for day-care centres in
Mumbai.