Recently, there is an advertisement in Singapore that touched many hearts.
It is a short film by Royston Tan (who made the movie 881) about dementia called Ah Gong. It is somewhat touching short film about how a grandson is trying to help his grandfather remember his past while feeding him.
Anyway, while we were watching TV, this ad came up and so my mother asked Ace, "When I grow old and get dementia, will you also feed me?"
"I will feed mummy..."
"But what about me?" Popo continued to ask..
"I will feed mummy..." Ace insisted. So I asked him why he only feeds me and not Popo and he finally explained his reason.. "I don't have so many hands what.. I only have one pair of hands.."
"But Popo also love you so much and do so many things for you and feed you when you are young what.." I reminded him..
"Ok lah.." Ace decided.. "I will turn into transformer and have 4 hands so that I can feed both of you.."
"Then what about the rest of the people in the family?"
"Ok, then I transform to have 10 hands.."
"Is it enough or not?" I asked him and I held up 10 fingers and counted which hand feeds who and realized that 10 fingers later, he only managed to feed me, daddy, popo, gong gong, zhen popo, lao ma, ah yee, net net, lao kou..so Ace realized he doesnt have enough hands still..
"Ok lah, I transform to 100 hands then!" And satisfied that it seem to solve the problem, we moved on to another topic...
PS:
Anyway, I loved the short film but felt that the tagline about how patients with dementia are still the same inside is rather misleading. Yes, they might be the same person with the same memory but the really show a very different side of themselves now that they have no defensive mode and no self constraint.
If a person keeps thinking tat the patient with dementia is merely forgetful but still the same, he will be in for a darn rude shock.
My own grandma is suffering from dementia. Initially she just was very forgetful about dates... she would repeat the same question every 5 min (and coming up with a diff answer or the same answer 10000 times a day is not easy.. especially if she is asking a question tat is particularly uncomfortable for you like "Why don't you have one more kid?") She would often forget current events but relieve events of the past again and again. Initially, her lack of restrain allowed me to find out many things about the past... she opened up and told me many things tat even my dad does not know...
As time went along, it got more and more difficult. She was always hungry and started "stealing food" even though we had no problem with her eating openly. She also starts to "steal" and hoard tissue paper and when we are not looking, she will tear out lots of tissue, fold and put it into the waistband of her trousers. If you catch her in the act and ask her about it, she gets angry and insists that she only took one piece to clean her mouth and make a big show out of FOLDING the tissue and CLEANING her mouth with it.
She goes into a bad mood for no reason and insists on going home.. she starts to hate my other grandma and would often almost turn violent or use vulgar language to scold her.... WHile she used to have a good sense of humour and would laugh at my feeble jokes, she now is indifferent most of the time to what I say to her. She goes into violent bursts of temper and the very gentle, loving smiling face that I am so used to seeing appears less and less and her violence, her anger and aggressiveness show up more and more often...
I tried to organize a family gathering so tat my cousins would visit her. She was happy that night we came to her house. The next day, she clean forgot about it. Her sudden dislike for my other grandma and a abrupt change of mood where she suddenly refuses to come over or suddenly wants to go home is a source of such immense stress for my mother that she actually finds herself preferring to work 1hr away from home and reach home at 8pm everyday even though as a infant educarer, she has like MANY CHOICES just within walking distance.
Yes, they are not the same person inside but you can be sure you will see a different side of them when they have dementia. Dun expect to stay the same or be the same. I think the point is.. even if they show their less pleasant side to you..or even if they are unable to express their feelings as well with dementia or they are unable to remember you or the things they do together with you or the things that matter to you.. it shouldnt make you love them any less and it doesnt mean tat their love for you is any less. So I think a better tagline should be "Dementia doesnt forget LOVE" or something like tat...
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