What my father’s Alzheimer’s taught me

When I tell friends, ‘You never hear people talking about the upside of Alzheimer’s’, they look at me like I’ve said something about Hitler being nice to animals. In general, a mention of dementia will ruin any conversation. People freeze up at the thought. It’s true that having a relative with dementia is hard and the bad far outweighs the good, but that is no reason to ignore the positives completely. In fact, the tiny benefits can help you deal with all the downsides. 

I’ve had a lot of time to look for the positives. Growing up, my grandparents had Alzheimer’s so I was aware of the condition, but I hadn’t thought that it could happen to my parents. Then Mum was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s in 2012 and Dad with both Alzheimer’s and vascular dementia in 2016. Sadly, my parents didn’t make it through the pandemic. Now, looking back, I realise that the best relationship I ever had with my father was when he had dementia.