To date, 1.2 million people are affected by Alzheimer’s disease in France, and 225,000 new cases are detected each year, including 32,000 people under the age of 65. Beyond the financial cost of caring for this disease to ease patients’ daily lives, the emotional, psychological and physical costs endured by more than 1.8 million caregivers are hard to quantify and receive little attention. The daily life of Gérard, 67, an early-onset case of Alzheimer’s disease that appeared when he was 56 and whose rapid progression plunged him into a state of dependency requiring constant attention, sheds light on the suffering, distress and complexities that the patient and the caregivers around him experience every day.
In 2022 he entered a specialized nursing home, then 9 months later was referred to a reinforced care unit in a hospital setting, allowing him to cope with disorientation and the other symptoms that are increasingly present, such as agitation, wandering, hallucinations, aggression or obsessive disorders, which exhaust him and dangerously weaken him.
He is now going through the seventh (and last) stage of the disease and is waiting for his body to finally forget how to function.
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