Dementia
Dementia is experienced by some 50 million people around the world and the number is increasing as people are living longer. Christians seem to rationalise physical illnesses more easily than those which affect the mind. Having a loved one whose Christian faith has been strong throughout life then suffer with dementia and sometimes an apparent loss of faith is much harder to bear. Dementia is indeed a tough nut to crack and there are no easy answers but it is something we need to understand better. Pressures in life can act like nutcrackers as they pivot upon us affecting physical and mental health but dementia is in a league of its own. Many conditions can cause dementia, including degenerative diseases such as Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, and Huntington’s but it is also associated with infections, vascular diseases, stroke, depression and chronic drug use. What we fail to know, God knows.
- ‘There are so many people getting dementia. It is like an epidemic now. It is a terrible disease because once you get it, your life changes completely’ – Engelbert Humperdinck