In sickness and in health
Married couples affected by a dementia diagnosis were given the opportunity to describe “honestly and openly” how the dynamics of their relationship has changed. University of South Australia’s Dr David Evans spoke to DPS News about his study into the impact of dementia on marriage.
Married couples affected by a dementia diagnosis were given the opportunity to describe “honestly and openly” how the dynamics of their relationship has changed.
University of South Australia’s Dr David Evans spoke to DPS News about his study into the impact of dementia on marriage. Findings revealed while dementia can present a range of challenges for a married couple, the tragic diagnosis can also offer some hope.
“Many changes accompany dementia and the spouse starts to feel their partner is almost becoming a different person, and they feel they’re losing their partner,” Dr Evans said.
According to Dr Evans, often in the “older age demographic” people have more “fixed roles”, with the man doing the bills and handyman type jobs, and the woman taking care of the cooking and clean.
“When dementia is in the marriage, the healthy partner has to step up and take on the role of the other person too, and there can be a lot of stress in that.”
“Huge problems” in the marriage reportedly arose as changes in relationship dynamics changed as the person living with dementia became less able to complete normal activities.
But it wasn’t all ‘doom and gloom’ for the participants, according to Dr Evans.
“The nature of dementia brought them closer together than ever before as they had more time to spend together.
“Many of the relationships were oddly more platonic and many examples of how each partner tried to support the other partner. But I guess to an extent, there are not any happy endings when it comes to dementia.”
Dr Evans would like to see these couples stay “more connected” and called for a greater recognition on how dementia impacts on the marriage.
“With the population ageing, we are going to have this wave of people with dementia coming through over the next 30 years. We do need to develop strategies in communities to offer support.
“The first big step is keeping dementia services in the community and increase awareness,” he said.
Stay tuned. DPS News will also speak with Dr Evans about his research into living alone with dementia in the coming weeks.
