Dushanbe (AsiaNews) – In Central Asia, caring for elderly parents is considered a sacred duty, and care homes continue to be viewed with suspicion and stigma. Yet the region’s population is ageing, and dementia, Alzheimer’s and the after-effects of strokes are increasingly requiring round-the-clock care from family members.
Azattyk Asia has explored why families are left to bear this burden alone, how they cope with burnout and why, even when they need help, they are reluctant to entrust their loved ones to specialist institutions.
Elderly relatives often find themselves facing the illness alone, unprepared, without the help of specialists and often without even the chance to rest.
“The worst thing is when you see a loved one who seems close by, but is no longer really there,” says Malika, 45, from Dushanbe. Her mother was a highly respected engineer, but today, at 74, she suffers from dementia: sometimes she does not recognise her daughter; at other times, she searches for relatives who have long since passed away.
Her husband did not support his wife’s decision to devote herself entirely to caring for her mother, and arguments became increasingly frequent. Eventually, Malika went to live alone with her mother, and after a while, the marriage ended. Her two children, now students, stayed with their father, and now visit their mother and grandmother at the weekends.
As time has gone on, Malika has had almost no life of her own; she has stopped seeing her friends and given up on the idea of making new ones, but she refuses even to consider stopping looking after her mother: “When I was little, she sacrificed everything for me in the same way: her sleep, her peace of mind, her health.”
Her story is no exception; the population of Central Asia is gradually ageing. In Kazakhstan, older people account for around 13 per cent of the population, and in recent years their numbers have grown by around half a million. In Tajikistan, people aged between 60 and 74 make up around 6 per cent of the population. In Kyrgyzstan, there are around 440,000 people over the age of 65, again accounting for around 6 per cent of the population.
There are no precise figures on the number of people with dementia in Tajikistan, but according to Zebo Kadyrova, a psychologist at the NGO Salomati in Dushanbe, four or five families coping with this condition contact her organisation every week.
She notes that coming to terms with the disease is particularly difficult for those whose loved ones were previously active and held high social standing: “Relatives often perceive the symptoms of the disease as tantrums or deliberate behaviour; it is therefore important to explain to families how to respond to anxiety, aggression and repetitive questions without humiliating the person.”
Timur, aged 34, lives in north-western Kazakhstan and has for years been witnessing the progressive deterioration in his mother’s health; she looks after her 87-year-old grandmother. The elderly woman suffers from cardiovascular disease, sudden fluctuations in blood pressure and panic attacks.
In recent years, she has been virtually bedridden, and the greatest burden has fallen on Timur’s mother. She had to give up her job to look after her mother, without ever qualifying for a full pension; the elderly woman’s other children live in different towns and are unable to help with her day-to-day care. The family tried to find a carer, but this proved difficult in the village where they live.
Over time, her mother has become her grandmother’s carer, nurse and psychologist all rolled into one. The elderly woman was completely dependent on her presence and would wake her up in the middle of the night just to have her daughter sit beside her; the constant lack of sleep and stress have had a serious impact on her health.
It is particularly difficult for Timur to see how quickly her mother has aged; the family has never seriously discussed the possibility of his grandmother moving into a care home or a residential care facility.
“Parents associate this with abandoning the elderly; nobody thinks about qualified care or the possibility that the person might interact with others. Everyone just thinks the person won’t survive,” says Timur. Stories like this are a regular occurrence in Central Asia.
