Don't take my wife's dementia drugs

Peter Walker, with his wife Sheila, who suffers from Alzheimer's.

26 June 2006 09:16

An OAP whose wife suffers from Alzheimer's disease is joining a mass protest in London to demand an end to government plans to axe treatments.

Peter Walker, 71, who lives in Gawdy Road, Norwich, will join hundreds of demonstrators tomorrow to protest at the cost-cutting decision by the National Institute for Clinical Excellence (Nice) to deny drug treatments to people with early and late stage dementia.

The Nice appraisal panel ruled earlier this year to withdraw the three anti-cholinesterase drugs which help in the early stages of Alzheimer's disease, and Ebixa, the only drug available in the late stages, and to restrict treatment to those in the moderate stages. But the Alzheimer's Society, together with other charities, is appealing against the decision on July 13 and 14 and has organised the London protests.

Mr Walker's wife Sheila, now 64, was diagnosed with Alzheimer's at the age of 61 but started displaying symptoms at the age of 55.

For the past 14 months she has been living in Ashfields residential home in Rackheath and before that, Mr Walker, a retired electrician, was her full-time carer.

He said: “It started when she gradually started showing all the symptoms of shutting down.

“She started putting plants in upside down and would look at them vacantly. If you opened a jar of coffee, she would fill it up with water.

“She started to get extremely jealous of anyone I spoke to and couldn't unlock a door.

“For the past four years she has not been able to make a cup of tea. She sleeps during the day and walks around at night.”

In the past six months his wife has deteriorated and is now in such advanced stages of

dementia she does not even recognise him.

She has been taking Ebixa, which costs just £2.50 a day, and Aricept, prescribed by her GP.

“I am sure the drugs have helped,” said Mr Walker, a grandfather. “I am sure she would have been in a much worse state than this if she had not been taking them.”

He added: “It's crazy what Nice is proposing. I would have thought the earlier you can catch it, the better.

“They help the patient and the spin-off is that it is easier for the carer.”

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