*November 3, 2010* *CHENNAI:* Srinivasan's day begins with his wife attending to his morning toilet, his bathing and then his breakfast. Well into his seventies, this former government official, who once took the nitty-gritties of a government administration in his stride, is today as helpless as an infant. Srinivasan is a victim of dementia, a condition of severe loss of memory, brought on by degenerative diseases like Alzheimer's', vascular dementia and sometimes Parkinson's Disease.
"He had to be told every time where the bathroom was and it came to a point where he was not able to remember his own identity," said Dr R Sathianathan, the director of Institute of Mental Health. "In such cases, the entire burden falls on the caregiver, or in the case of Srinivasan, it was his wife. But, since his family was affluent, they were able to afford hired help. However, there are many others who are not so fortunate." According to the World Alzheimer's report 2010, today there are over three million dementia patients and the numbers continue to rise. Of the three million, around 90-94 percent of the patients in urban areas live at home and are looked after by family members, while 95-99 percent of patients in rural areas stay at home. Despite this, there are very few day care centres for dementia patients in the country to give temporary respite to family members or caregivers. Tamil Nadu has only one privately run day care centre, that is located in Chennai. "We are aware of the problem,"said R Vasuki, director of Social Welfare in Tamil Nadu. "In fact, we have been toying with the idea of requesting for a government-run day care centre for elderly dementia patients, but nothing concrete has come about yet." Taking cognisance of this, the Union government has issued a grant under the Integrated Programme for Older Persons, where organisations applying to set up day care centres for dementia patients would receive a 90 percent subsidy from the government. However, there were few takers for the scheme. "The programme was launched in 2008," said Vasuki. "Despite the fact that we did give it a fair amount of publicity in the state, it is only this year that we have received one application for such a centre from Sivaganga district." Chennai-based psychiatrist, Dr R Tara opines that the issue largely concerns logistics. "How many people are prepared to drop elderly patients everyday and pick them up," she asks. "Transportation is always an issue. Also, it will not do to hire regular volunteers. Staff trained in dealing with such patients are hard to come by." Adds Dr Sathianathan, "Such a day care centre needs a large plot of land or a building located on the ground floor in calm surroundings. Also, being elderly people, they may develop sudden illness. So, it is necessary that a multi-disciplinary medical team is at hand always. After all, taking care of an elderly person is very different from taking care of an elderly dementia patient. The latter are like six month old babies." According to him, the need of the hour is for the government to have a public / private partnership to set up such centres. Chennai alone, with over 150 corporation zones, would require at least 30 such day care centres. http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/6849204.cms -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Mental Health Advocacy (News 'N Views) India" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/MhaNewsViewsIndia?hl=en ------------- Affiliated Groups : MENTAL HEALTH ADVOCACY INDIA [email protected] Discussions on mental health law / policy / plan monitoring / human rights etc [email protected] India-specific news and views related to mental health [email protected] Information and support to carers of people with mental health issues [email protected] Mutual support and sharing of experiential knowledge, skills and social learning amongst peers
