Summary
Joan Bakewell, tonight on BBC Radio 4, explores the topic of dementia, how dementia affects people and their families, the importance of early diagnosis, the services available post-diagnosis, and the broader importance of dementia-friendly communities.
Read and hear more (following broadcast tonight): BBC Radio 4: Suppose I Lose It.
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The programme confirmed my impression that people with dementia are normally allowed to stay in their own homes until they can no longer be looked after there. However a frightening fate has befallen my friend Marcellina, aged 94 and needing neither nursing nor social care, just a constant companion housekeeper (which I as a former nurse and close friend am prepared to become). She has been deprived of her liberty and put into a residential institution without her consent. Friends are not allowed to know her whereabouts because of data protection, and apparently because reminders of when she had a life will “confuse” her and prevent her from settling into what, without doubt, she will be viewing as a prison. Although the capacity assessment and best interests decision were not made according to the code of practice (absolutely no help provided to her to enable her to express her wishes or have them taken into account), there is no apparent remedy. Her case is not unique. I am commenting here in order that tragedies like Marcellina’s are exposed to the glare of publicity and pressure brought for the government to act to introduce safeguards against abuse of vulnerable elderly people’s rights by the very agencies supposed to be helping them.