The Irish Times: Calls for new, ring-fenced budget to improve dementia services

I was interviewed for this article by Elaine Edwards. You can read it in its entirety here, but here’s a sample I have to share.

Rachel McMahon of the Alzheimer’s Society of Ireland’s Dementia Carers Campaign Network. She first became a carer in 2005, when her father, Tony, a sports broadcaster, was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s. Photograph: Liam Burke/Press 22

The Government has been urged to create a ring-fenced budget in October to tackle the growing gaps in services for people with Alzheimer’s disease and dementia.

“Emerging gaps in the supports and services for people with dementia and their families across Ireland” were identified in the Government’s mid-term review of the National Dementia Strategy published in May, the Alzheimer Society of Ireland has noted.

Case study: “There’s very little support in Limerick for carers”

Rachel McMahon, of the Dementia Carers Campaign Network in Limerick, first became a carer in 2005, when her father, Tony, a sports broadcaster, was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s.

She gave up studying journalism in Griffith College and moved home to help look after him. She says she had to accept that the diagnosis changed the family’s circumstances.

“He was 58 years of age and I was a student, I was in college in Dublin. I chose to leave and come home and help care for him because we didn’t really know what to expect and we thought we needed to be around, just in case. His mood became erratic and he wasn’t allowed to drive. He couldn’t make a sandwich or fix himself a cup of coffee or anything like that.

“After the diagnosis, there was a fairly swift decline and it was sort of a plateau for a while and then it would go down again after six months. We were always monitoring how he was and how it would change.”

‘Non-stop’

“It was just non-stop. In terms of services, he couldn’t go to old age psychiatry which deals with a lot of people who have some sort of dementia, because he wasn’t over 65. That’s the situation around the country.”

Her father was eventually cared for full-time in a nursing home. He died in 2012.

Rachel’s family is now experiencing similar issues getting supports for her grandmother, who was also diagnosed with dementia. She says more dementia advisers are badly needed, as is “signposting” of services for people newly diagnosed.

“There’s very little support in Limerick for carers. And there’s a knock-on effect. If you are not looking after the person with dementia and providing supports and resources, it affects the people who are caring for them. They get physically sick, they have mental health issues, they are emotionally drained. They start to get really unwell and they need to keep going. They struggle then as well and they need supports and services.”