The deviousness of dementia | Dasha Kiper | Society | The Guardian

A beautiful essay by Dasha Kiper about living with a man who is losing his memory.



"Dementia not only affects the minds of its victims; it also creates a world so fragmented, so skewed and redundant – so indifferent to normal rules of behaviour – that caregivers unwittingly become part of the madness. And this, unfortunately, is what the doctors and the guidebooks offering counsel to caregivers often fail to notice. Because we automatically posit a clear distinction between caregiver and patient, between the normal and the abnormal, we don’t see that the true burden for caregivers is, in fact, the absence of such a divide. When a loved one loses cognitive purchase, it’s not only his or her world that begins to unravel, but the caregiver’s as well."



The deviousness of dementia | Dasha Kiper | Society | The Guardian