Transcript of Thought For the World’s thought for the day

Julian Baggini

19th February 2009

Some things are so frightening we can barely bring ourselves to say them. For years, one of our greatest health fears has been “The Big C”. Now, however, it seems cancer may be losing its ignominious top spot to what the broadcaster John Suchet this week referred to as “The A word”.
There is no puzzle as to why Alzheimer’s, like other forms of dementia, is so feared. It is not only that, as we live longer, more and more of us are going to suffer from it, or know someone close to us who will. In fact, within twenty years, more than a million people in the UK will have dementia.
But it is the nature as well as the scale of the menace that is so terrifying. While many diseases can take our lives, this one can take our very selves.
For the sufferer, this mercifully becomes less troubling the further the disease develops. When you lose your self, you are no longer aware that you no longer have it.
For partners, friends and family, however, this dissolving of the person we have known and loved can be the most difficult thing to come to terms with. Suchet, for example, spoke of how he sometimes got annoyed at remarks his beloved wife Bonnie made as dementia tightened its grip on her.
“I have to remind myself it’s not my Bonnie who’s talking,” he said. “She’s gone.”
“And yet,” he continued, “she’s physically still there.”
This paradox of dementia goes to the heart of the puzzle of who we all are. On the one hand, we are flesh and blood, biological individuals. On the other, we are more than just animals. Without our minds we are not ourselves, even if our bodies keep functioning.
Usually, our bodies and minds co-exist, intermingled, inseparable. When our minds go and our bodies remain, we find it hard to make sense of what is left behind. Thankfully the love of those who care for the sufferer is usually kept alive, for the memory of who was once there, the flicker of self that still remains, or perhaps a little of both.
The existence of dementia poses a problem for anyone who wants to take an optimistic view of life. Yet in its horror, it has a capacity to remind us of what we most value. The human self is mysterious, fragile, and precious. Those whose marvellous, rich individual personalities we love, we must cherish, and be thankful for every day we have with them.

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