YOUR MOTHER’S KEEPER

It’s a sad, and sobering, moment in many people’s lives when you turn forty or forty-five and the realization hits you: You have suddenly become your parents’ parent. The child becomes the mother or father. You start making decisions that affect not only the quality of their lives but how and where they live.

Physically and mentally Mum and Dad are deteriorating and children who have followed orders are suddenly issuing them. And sometimes you have to make hard and unpopular decisions for their own safety.

It’s a weird place to be. To become your mother’s keeper. Many times, children, especially daughter’s, have sacrificed any independent life of their own to become a full time carer for an ailing parent.  And it’s going to get worse.

As medical science progresses and Baby Boomers live longer there are thousands more people living into their Eighties and Nineties. And to put it crudely our western civilization isn’t used to it. Isn’t ready for it.

In Oriental families and Mediterranean families ages is revered, families are kept together, and even senility is cushioned by the family unit.

In the west we seemingly can’t wait to get the oldies into a nursing home for a bed in God’s waiting room.

I’m drawn to this morbid thought by a new report that estimates nearly half a million Australians will have dementia by 2030. And there will be an acute shortage of paid and unpaid carers for them.

Access Economics estimates that there will be 150,000 fewer cares than needed within the next twenty years and that is scary. Already our nursing homes are understaffed or inadequately staffed with under-trained workers.

And almost weekly we hear of yet another nursing home scandal where people are being treated worse and fed less than at the Lort Smith Dogs’ Home.

The mind boggles, if the survey figures are right. Last century most men could not expect to live past 75 and women averaged about 82. Now, to die in your Seventies is to die young. Last century two world wars in just over thirty years decimated the planet. Mercifully, there hasn’t been a major war in 65 years. In my lifetime.

The head of Alzheimers Australia, John Watkins says ‘It's an extraordinary situation we are facing. Australia has never faced a social health issue like the threat of dementia before. It seems trite to say it but this is an avalanche that is coming our way.’

The message here is that both at State and Federal levels there must be concentrated spending on health and hospitals –but also increasingly on research and preventive measures.

And the big question remains? Are forms of dementia like Alzheimer’s getting worse? And if so why? Are there clues in our diets? Our lifestyles? Our stress factors?

And remember: You may be looking after your Mum or Dad now. Thirty years from now you’ll be in their situation. Scary, isn’t it?

Tuesday, May 5, 2009

© Copyright Derryn Hinch 2009