I don’t have to think very hard to remember when my mother’s memory revealed the first tiniest clues that all was not well.
We were on the phone. I recounted a story of my best friend, Caroline.
“Who’s Caroline?” she asked.
I had known Caroline since I was very young; she was a significant part of my life. And Mum’s.
I told myself my mother’s lapse was on account of the dislocation that comes with a conversation that isn’t face-to-face. That my reference to Caroline was out of context. That Mum wasn’t concentrating. That she was having a ‘senior moment’. And then I tried to forget that Mum had ever forgotten Caroline at all.
That was 10 years before my mother died of Alzheimer’s disease, the most common type of dementia.
It accounts for up to 80 per cent of cases and is the slowest to develop which, perhaps paradoxically, might be to a person’s advantage. It could mean that there’s a window of opportunity to do something about the impact of this devastating disease that many people – including some doctors – don’t yet appreciate.
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