It's Dementia Awareness Week, and that is one reason I wanted to record my thoughts on here....

How aware were we of Dementia in the past?  Had you ever heard of it when you were a child? I hadn't, or even as a young adult, when did it become known to us.....?

People say 'There is a lot of it about these days'

They really do.

But I think back to school, and Shakespeare - well, not a lot I must admit, but what has come into my mind of recent months is The Seven Ages of Man poem and the end line. 

".......Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything"

If the old Bard was not describing Dementia, I'm a Dutchman.

I remember  where my Mum lived, and I remember her telling me about the old lady who lived alone down the road, and that she was going 'doolally'  as the poor old dear kept going out and about in the middle of the night in her night clothes. Mum would call during the day to see the old lady was OK, but it never occurred to Mum that the lady was ill with a disease called 'Dementia' - she was 'just going senile' as people did.

Thankfully, there is now a diagnosis - no cure, but a diagnosis. Valuable research is being carried out into the causes, and looking for that elusive cure. But how many of us carers, who have staggered past the wondering, the doubts, and the puzzling, to the final diagnosis - was it a relief to know there was something wrong? We then move to the acceptance, and to the wondering of what might lie ahead.

In the old doolally days, people looked after their own, because it was what one did. If there was no one to do the looking after, there were always the Old Folks Homes, and further back  the Asylums and Workhouses.

Now we know more, we expect more.... but we question, we want to know what lies ahead - and should we?

Once we know what the future holds, in all its darkness, and dread - have we ruined the present?