“I want you to come over to see me.”
“Right now?”
“You haven’t been here for weeks.”
“What? I was there just yesterday.”
“No you weren’t.”
“Mom, don’t you remember?”
“Are you accusing me of losing my memory? I can remember perfectly well!”
“But Mom--”
“I remember that you haven’t come to see me for a long time. Don’t you care about me anymore?”
That conversation, or something like it, goes on every day, in countless places across the country.
It’s the product of dementia. There are many kinds of dementia, of which Alzheimer’s Disease is the best known.
It’s hard to call dementia an epidemic. Epidemics typically involve infectious diseases. But when one in every 11 Canadians over the age of 65 has some form of dementia, some 700,000 Canadians, it’s hard to call dementia anything but an epidemic. Every year, about 25,000 new cases are diagnosed.
Apply those figures to any other illness – measles, cancer, AIDS – and you’d have not just an epidemic, but panic.
The invisible crisis
Compare dementia with, say, the dreaded Ebola virus. According to official figures, Ebola killed fewer than 12,000 people. In the whole world.
Ebola has about a 50 per cent cure rate. Dementia has a zero cure rate. It is, as the Alzheimer’s Foundation notes, the only one of the top ten killers which can be neither prevented nor cured. Treatment consists basically of delaying tactics.
Add to that the caregiver crisis. Over 50,000 dementia patients currently live in hospital beds – a fiendishly expensive means of providing care. Home care is cheaper. But home care involves, on average, 1.5 other adults. Caring for a person with dementia becomes, too often, the dominant influence in the caregivers’ lives.
The real victims, I suggest, are the caregivers. If they take responsibility for their parent, their spouse, their friend, there comes a point where they cannot leave that person alone. He goes out the door, and can’t recognize his own home anymore. She puts a pot on the stove, and leaves the burner on high. He can’t remember that he got up at night to go to the bathroom just ten minutes before. She thinks you’re her brother, her father, her high school sweetheart.
Too often, caregivers give up their own lives while they care for a loved one.
Intentional blindness?
Why do we tolerate this situation? Is it because most dementia patients are elderly, and we expect them to die anyway?
Today’s crisis will only get worse. The Alzheimer Society estimates that by 2031, when the demographic bulge of the Baby Boomer generation has entered old age, the number of cases may top a million.
Dementia currently costs Canada’s health care system about $10.4 billion a year. By 2031, that cost will rise by 60 per cent, to around $16.6 billion.
But only five per cent of the Canadian Institutes of Health budget is invested in dementia research.
We are woefully ill-prepared for the future.
Perhaps because we live in a culture of denial.
In the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, author Douglas Adams invented a race of creatures, the Ravenous Bugblatters of Traal, who were so “mind-boggingly stupid” that they believed that if you couldn’t see them, they couldn’t see you.
Perhaps Adams intended Bugblatters as a metaphor for humans. If we refuse to see it, it’s not there.
So we deny climate change. Even though the figures are clear. Global temperatures are rising. So are sea levels. Polar ice is melting. Storms, floods, and fires escalate in violence. But we’d rather debate it than fight it.
We deny the massive extinction of species. As with climate change, we’d rather argue about possible causes than acknowledge the problem.
We haven’t even begun to consider the effects of living in a bath of wireless transmissions, relying on safety standards drafted before cell phones and Bluetooth even existed.
And the topic of over-population is utterly taboo. We humans are already the most invasive species on earth. No other species has had such a devastating effect on other species or on the environment. But we can’t talk about it, because we consider all solutions unthinkable.
And, of course, we deny the crisis of dementia. Governments throw money at corporate subsidies, bank bailouts, housing subsidies, drug wars and real wars; they let amateurs bear the burden of dementia.
A whole bunch of things are going to catch up with us, one of these days. I don’t know when. But the Alzheimer’s Society’s choice of 2031 seems as good a date as any.
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Copyright © 2017 by Jim Taylor. Non-profit use in congregations and study groups encouraged; links from other blogs welcomed; all other rights reserved.
To send comments, to subscribe, or to unsubscribe, write jimt@quixotic.ca
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YOUR TURN
I get the impression from your letters (not all of which are printed below) that many of you found the new year depressing. Perhaps that’s not surprising, given the political situation (not just in the U.S.), the environmental crisis, and the weather.
I’m glad some of you got some comfort from last week’s column.
For example, Linda Winton wrote, “Your New Year's column helped me get over the doldrums of the sadness of loss and the sense of absurdity that has been part of the past year. Thank you so much.
“In particular, a response to your Christmas Day column that came from Marion Loree, with respect to ‘God failing’ lifted my heart and soul...particularly Marion's description of God as the Life Force of the Universe.”
Rachel Pritchard liked the quotation from Clarissa Pinkola Estés. “But Mother Teresa says the same thing more succinctly — and makes it much easier for simple me to feel I too can make a difference.”
— Do not wait for leaders; do it alone, person to person.
— We can't all do great things, only small things with great love.
And Isabel Gibson agreed that “Doing what is within reach is sound advice.”
Isabel continued, “I sometimes wonder whether being exposed to news coverage about what goes on beyond our reach is, on balance, a force for connecting us, or for driving us crazy. I see such sweeping judgements made about those we don't know — such sweeping indictments about their motives — that sometimes I despair for our ability to work together, or even to recognize that there are few ‘100/0’ things in this world. Few things (and fewer people) that are all good or all bad. So, yeah. I can live with the goal of just adding my mite.”
The male respondents tended to take a more dismal view.
Bob Rollwagen wrote, “There is one constant in everything that has been said this year, the strong take advantage of the weak, the rich take advantage of the poor, the educated take advantage of the less educated, those in power benefit over those not in power… In general, while bullies are despised, they win and they know it.
“How can society, the world, get stronger as an entity without a gain in individual well being? The gap between top and bottom widened this year as in every year since the ‘baby boom’ generation moved into the position of power. While more people than ever are moving above the poverty level, more people than ever are dropping below the ‘middle class’ status, and the ruling class is now less than 1% of the population.
“It is easy to say ‘Who cares’ because I, my kids, and even my grandkids will be ok. But as we all know, memories are short and history repeats itself.”
Frank Martens looked back for lessons from that history: “At the time of the Roman Empire, where a fairly small group backed up by a large army that was the scourge of the earth, many small groups tried to fend off the Romans, generally to no avail. There was no justice and no peace for many years, until the Empire disintegrated, largely from within.
“I don't think there has ever been a time on this earth where a small group of people (and you can include JC and his disciples) have ever won the battle against evil.
“Look into the future, Jim. What do you see for us? TheTYEE, which is a decidedly left wing newspaper, took a poll of its readers regarding their prognosis for the coming year. Over 80% said they view the future as hopeless.”
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TECHNICAL STUFF
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PROMOTION STUFF…
Ralph Milton ’s latest project is called “Sing Hallelujah” -- the world’s first video hymnal. It consists of 100 popular hymns, both new and old, on five DVDs that can be played using a standard DVD player and TV screen, for use in congregations who lack skilled musicians to play piano or organ. More details at www.singhallelujah.ca
Ralph’s HymnSight webpage is still up, http://www.hymnsight.ca, with a vast gallery of photos you can use to enhance the appearance of the visual images you project for liturgical use (prayers, responses, hymn verses, etc.)
Wayne Irwin's “Churchweb Canada,” an inexpensive service for any congregation wanting to develop a web presence, with free consultation. <http://www.churchwebcanada.ca>
I recommend Isabel Gibson’s thoughtful and well-written blog, www.traditionaliconoclast.com
Alva Wood’s satiric stories about incompetent bureaucrats and prejudiced attitudes in a small town -- not particularly religious, but fun; alvawood@gmail.com to get onto her mailing list.
Tom Watson writes a weekly blog called “The View from Grandpa Tom’s Balcony” -- ruminations on various subjects, and feedback from Tom’s readers. Write him at tomwatso@gmail.com or twatson@sentex.net