«Until two and a half years ago my mother was an independent and very lively person. Now she remains lively, but not autonomous.” Maria Sgabelluri66 years old, support teacher from Bovalino, a Calabrian municipality in the province of Reggio Calabria, takes care of her 97-year-old mother together with her retired husband. She «she She had a series of problems that led her to need the pacemaker. Since then, perhaps due to the anesthesia, she has started to have hallucinations and she needs to be monitored all the time. She often mistakes the day for the night, yesterday we spent a sleepless night, there was no way to make her sleep.”
Maria and her husband of 12 years have dedicated a good part of their free time toAuser, a voluntary association established by the CGIL, which promotes active ageing. Yet, she confesses, it is difficult to find someone to help her take care of her mother: «She is atrophying more and more, she would need a therapist to make her do some gymnastics, but the public structures are not able to provide this type of service.”
Like all elderly people suffering from senile dementia, it would also be important «to have people who came to visit her from time to time, helping her to leave these four walls: apart from me and my husband, and a few neighbors, my mother no longer sees no one. I have two brothers, one is ill and the other lives in Turin. My children also live outside. We endure this solitude together, we don’t know how to relieve it.” Taking an elderly person in a wheelchair for a walk is not easy: “There are many problems with architectural barriers.” And even finding tailor-made activities for a person who spends the day at home is difficult in the presence of a combination of physical and mental illnesses: «My mother really liked knitting, she made night shoes for everyone, we also have sends to Milan, Germany. It was a way to occupy the time, but now her hands are too numb, she can’t do it anymore. So I give her a ball of yarn, I tell her ‘untie it’, to make her do something.”
Moreover, in the area the lack of public services is not limited to the elderly: «Disabled children disappear after school, they become a world apart, they are neither helped nor valued. I know this because I am a support teacher. There are two rehabilitation centers in the area, but no recreational centre, which is why we opened the Auser. Even Caritas sends people to us, telling us ‘make them do something’.”
#Mum #years #looked #hours #day #husband #assistance
– 2024-03-31 21:37:27
