Health

Alzheimer breaks hearts
by Claudia Sonea

Well, if you ever wanted to cheat on your life partner and get away unpunished, you now have the perfect excuse: Alzheimer. Beyond all jokes, the matter is a serious one and has become publicly known thanks to former US Supreme Court justice Sandra Day O'Connor that people who suffer Alzheimer can often get into a romance forgetting the former life partner. O'Connor's husband is a patient of the care facility in Arizona, suffers from Alzheimer's disease and has a relationship with another woman patient who has the same disease. Instead of condemning her husband infidelity and proceed to divorce, Linda held a press conference and spoke about the matter in order to raise awareness of a lesser-known side of the degenerative brain disease. One of the O'Connors' three sons, Scott, stated that admirably his mother did not complain, but was happy that her husband gave up to the ideas of committing suicide and stopped being depressed due to this new romance. She is not alone in this situation, experts like Rubin Dessel, head of memory care services at the Hebrew Home care facility in New York, state that usually patients suffering from Alzheimer because of the memory loss live in the moment and it is not unusual to get involved in a romantic relationship. However, they are not sure how often this happens and Peter Reed, director of programs at the Alzheimer's Association says that this type of relationship is an almost child-like romance where the couple simply holds hands. It is not excluded to get physical. The family is the one suffering because of the relationship and often the patient is hurt if he/she had a happy marriage or previous relationship. Dessel says that it cannot be called cheating and she also praised the attitude of O'Connor who dedicated her life to his husband who suffers of Alzheimer for 17 years and can accept an extra-marital affair by stepping on her feelings for his sake. Indeed O'Connors actions should be a model for all the other person in the world that have the same problem.

related story: http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20071118/hl_afp/lifestyleushealthalzheimers;_ylt=AmRUTfv3dIJ8i9T1HwuoI5is0NUE

by Claudia Sonea for PocketNews (http://pocketnews.tv)

PocketNews is a new real-time news broadcaster delivering the latest and hottest news right to your pocket ! With global clients who want to be kept up to date, PocketNews is everyone's way of keeping in touch with the World.

posted by Blog TechSource @ 2:44 PM