HELPING TO REMEMBER: Mrs Emily Tan tries to jog Mr Tan Ewe Hoon's memory by showing him old family photo albums. -- ST PHOTO: CHEW SENG KIM

Daily details like the date and time slip by him, and old friends are erased from memory.

But Mr Tan still recognises his wife, whose cheeks he lovingly pinches while calling her a 'superwoman' for being his sole caregiver for the past seven years since he came down with Alzheimer's Disease.

A form of dementia common in people above 60, Alzheimer's attacks brain cells and causes memory loss. However, memory and concentration problems can be symptoms of depression in older people.

'It began very subtly. He would forget his keys, or ask me what we just had for lunch,' said Mrs Tan, a retired teacher, who brushed off his queries as a sign of old age then.

When the questions got more repetitive, a frustrated Mrs Tan took her husband to a polyclinic, and was later referred to the Memory Clinic at Tan Tock Seng Hospital where he was diagnosed.

'He's my big baby. Now I tell my friends, 'I've got to go home and look after my big baby',' she joked.

The couple live in a two-bedroom private apartment in Joo Chiat and she has been handling their bills and household chores for the past 10 years.

She also helps him shower and dresses him and often jogs his memory by showing him old family photo albums or setting him simple jigsaw puzzles to complete.

'I don't want to send him to a home, it is lonely out there. I will take care of him for as long as I can,' said Mrs Tan, who recently hired a domestic worker to help with the chores as her two daughters are married and living overseas.

'I only worry that I will die before he does.'

Alzheimer's made the news recently when retired United States Supreme Court justice Sandra Day O'Connor said she was thrilled that her husband, John O'Connor, who suffers from Alzheimer's, fell in love with a female resident at the facility for sufferers where he lives.

In Singapore, about 5 per cent of those over the age of 65 and 13 per cent of those over 70 suffer from dementia. About 7,000 cases are diagnosed every year, although the number is expected to rise more than eight times to 187,000 within 45 years.

There is no cure for Alzheimer's, although there are drugs to slow the progress of the disease by blocking off enzymes that cause the brain to deteriorate.

While some understand that relationships do develop among older persons living together in a long-term care facility, nursing homes here say they haven't seen cases similar to the O'Connors'.

However, Mrs Tan thinks that Alzheimer's has made her husband more sociable.

'He was your typical Chinese father. No hugs for the children even though he pampered the girls a lot,' recalled Mrs Tan wistfully.

Then, switching to a more jovial tone, she added: 'Now he says hello to everybody at the coffee shop when we go out. He likes to smile and touch people on the shoulder.

'So the illness can be a blessing.'

Explained Dr Philip Yap, a member of the executive committee member on the Alzheimer's Disease Association: 'This change in social behaviour could be due to an unlearning of social cultural norms which previously inhibited them.

'When patients lose their verbal abilities, they also switch to understand and express themselves through touch, like young children.'

But, he qualified, every case is different and behaviourial changes depend on the patient's personality, life history and the type and stage of dementia.

Once, Mr Tan prodded a passer-by's bottom with his walking stick, and Mrs Tan had to calm the angry woman down by asking her to forgive 'this old man who doesn't know what he is doing'.

Said Mrs Tan: 'It is embarrassing taking him out, especially in the early years. I feel sad and disappointed, but what to do? You can't keep thinking about the past, you have to find a way forward.'

This, to Mrs Tan, means reading newspaper articles and books on Alzheimer's that her daughters send her.

She also attends a monthly caregiver's support group run by the Alzheimer's Disease Association of Singapore.

She leaves Mr Tan at its New Horizon daycare centre in Tampines about two times a week, while she attends church, meets up for coffee with her friends, or volunteers as a breast cancer counsellor at various hospitals.

Said Mrs Tan, who recovered from breast cancer 19 years ago: 'As a caregiver, you must take care of yourself first then you can give better care, and you have to think positive.'

Pausing for a few seconds, she added with a laugh: 'If not, I'll go crazy even before he does.'

debyong@sph.com.sg