THE QUARANTINE OF MY MOTHER

The care of the elderly suffering from dementia who during the isolation for Covid 19 were entirely discharged on their children and the consequences on their disease.

On February 24, 2020, the Integrated Day Center that was attending my 87-year-old mother was closed due to the Covid19 emergency. Before that date, my sister and I had organized what we thought was the best possible life, for her age and pathologies. Four days a week he went to the day center where she did cognitive, recreational and physiotherapy activities. On Wednesdays, I took her to the Alzheimer café, where she had her group of friends. My mother has vascular dementia, what is most commonly called senile dementia, that slow and progressive decline in mental function. Memory loss, spatio-temporal disorientation, delirium, behavior disorders, loss of inhibitions, language difficulties (aphasia), mood disturbances, apathy, confusion, reduced cognitive abilities, difficulty walking and staying balanced, progressive and inexorable loss of autonomy. I live in Bergamo, my sister lives in Orzinuovi, the province of Brescia most affected by Covid19, my mother lives in Castelleone which, after Crema, is the municipality that has had the most cases of Cremonese Coronavirus and it is at 15 km from Codogno. We were in endemic territories, where it would have been better to stay home. First of all the trip: one hour outward and one hour return, in the streets of the lower Po valley. Streets increasingly deserted, sometimes in a disturbing way, being careful not to run over hares, nutria, but above all crows and birds. When I arrived to her, I began a series of urgent gestures: removing shoes, jacket, washing hands, disinfecting them, putting on gloves, putting on a mask. All trying to keep her away until I'm no longer dangerous to her. I have become a caregiver. In these two months of isolation my mother is losing more and more autonomy. She has difficulty getting up and walking, has a diaper for the night, needs help to wash, get dressed, is no longer able to eat herself, and for some time now she has no longer been able to manage medicines independently. In practice she does nothing. Absolutely nothing. I make her walk as much as possible with the walker. Peel apples, cut zucchini, peel potatoes; I always hope there is something to do. But as soon as I leave her alone, she returns to emptiness, the inexpressive emptiness. I asked myself: where do the elderly go with their minds, if they don't remember the past and the memory of the present lasts no more than five minutes? Maybe they just don't think, they live the present as it is. In old age there is no future, there is no past, there is only the present moment. An empty moment of expectations. She still enjoys when she eats, especially the dessert, which in the elderly is the taste that lasts longer, and also when she sleeps. At 7 in the evening she wants to go to sleep and stays in bed almost always until 8 in the morning. I greet her before turning off the light with "I love you mom" and she replies by lifting her chest "Me too", and it seems that the answer comes from the depths, then adds: "I live only for you". And it's true. A few months before I had been called for her to join RSA, I did not accept because she still had enough autonomy to stay at home, especially since she went to the Day Center. She could no longer be alone, but with the help of a woman, the Day Center and us sisters, she managed to lead a satisfying social existence and was protected and cared for. The decline was progressive, I knew it, we knew it, we knew that areas of the brain would deteriorate more and more, we also knew that it could be sudden, because vascular dementia goes in stages, not slowly. Covid19 was the acceleration, it didn't kill her physically, and not having hospitalized her in RSA was a fortune, but the quality of her life has significantly deteriorated, and mine and that of my sister have also deteriorated. Social isolation increasingly reduces her ability to relate, to move and her cognitive resources. This virus took it away from me anyway.