When medicine can only delay the inevitable

By Sunil Saxena

The neurologist was blunt. “No, dementia can’t be cured,” he said firmly. “At best, we can slow it down.” The answer was simple and straightforward. Yet, I found it hard to accept. “What does it mean,” I asked.

“It means that your mother will never be the same again. The best we can do is to slow down its progress.”

“And how do you do that,” I asked.

“We will watch her response to the medicine,” he said. “Whenever needed, we will increase the dosage.” He was also clear about one more thing. “My role ends here. After that, you and the family must take over.”

It’s a conversation I often remembered whenever I looked at my mother. “Have I done enough?” is the question that plagued me constantly.

Her decline was slow, but very evident. She hated leaving the bed. We had to cajole her to come out and sit in the sun. Our terrace overlooked the children’s play area and there was plenty of activity in the afternoon. But she had lost interest.

She even stopped using her phone and would refuse to take calls. The phone that was a great source of socialisation in the past did not interest her anymore. She even handed her phone to me for safe keeping. This was in sharp contrast to the days when she spent hours gossiping on the phone. It was almost like a lifeline for her then.

She even stopped doing her daily puja (prayers). This had kept her busy for a good 45 minutes every morning and half an hour in the evening. Now, all the idols of Gods and Goddesses and other essential puja items were stowed in the side cupboard.

The same happened with TV. There was a time she was glued to it. Now, she refused to switch it on. “I have forgotten the serials. I don’t even remember the characters and the roles they played,” she would tell me when I would insist.

The relatives and friends who visited us regularly gradually started melting away. I realised that this was the evil part of ageism. People don’t know how to connect with the elderly. They prefer to stay away.

So, how did my mother spend her time? By lying in the bed. The nursing attendant made sure that she had a bath every day, and that she comes to the living room to have food. That was all the activity for more than a year.

I realised that this is what the neurologist meant when he wanted the family to step in. Give reasons to my mother to live. She had nothing to look forward to. Every day is as dreary as the day that is over.

Finally, I understood this. It was a bitter but helpless realisation.  But any effort to bring her out of her self-imposed isolation was firmly rebuffed. The answers were pat. “I don’t have the strength to get up,” was her standard response.

The night promised little respite. “I lie awake through the night,” she would complain again and again.

Her fears of people watching her, wanting to hurt her, further compounded the problem. One of us would make it a point to stay next to her once it became dark.

It was like a vicious circle. The more she isolated herself, the more the chances of her recovery lessened.

How much could the medicine do? As the doctor said, it could only delay the inevitable.

Read also:
When the dementia medicine pushed my mother to the edge
The last event in an elderly person’s life
I missed my mother’s first symptoms of dementia, you should not