ChannelNewsAsia: From clowns and youths to caregivers, the folks of Arnsberg – where 1 in 5 residents is over 65 – show what social inclusiveness can do in the face of a worrying trend. The first in a CNA Insider series on how an ageing Germany is leading the way in long-term care.
At 98 years of age, Walter Rupert is still a man about town, stubbornly in control of his life.
Most days, despite advice to the contrary, he drives himself around in his manual Volkswagen Polo. His grip is firm on the steering wheel, his mind alert and his clear eyes focused on the road, as he shuttles between appointments: Monday meetings with the church deacons, Tuesday tea sessions for seniors, and chess with friends on other days.
The World War Two veteran lives alone and has no need of hearing aids nor dentures. Every day, he takes a walk if the weather is nice, or gets on his cycling machine at home if it isn’t. In short, he is the town’s poster boy for what old age could look like.“Maybe, just maybe, I am lucky to live another two years, then I’ll be 100 years old,” the retired engineer told CNA Insider with a cheeky grin.
But life was not this picture-perfect just a short while ago.His wife, the love of his life, was diagnosed with dementia 15 years ago. As her health and cognition deteriorated, Mr Rupert, already in his 80s, refused to put her in a nursing home.
Instead, up until her death early this year, he bathed, fed, and cared for her in their house on a hill. In that, she was like three-quarters of Germans with dementia – they live at home.“The last six years were difficult,” he admitted. ”She didn’t know her name. She could no longer speak and I had to see her face to know, was she hot or warm? Was she hungry or thirsty? “She could not walk, so I had to carry her. All day and night, the responsibility was on me.”
In many ways, the couple represent the flip sides of ideal and reality: The type of idyllic ageing that picturesque Arnsberg, a medieval West German town of population 80,000, is striving for – and the sober challenge of a dementia epidemic as its residents age.Already, one in five townsfolk is over the age of 65. Come 2030, that proportion will grow to almost one in three. That is like senior citizens making up a third of the residents of Singapore’s Bukit Timah, which has a similar-sized population.
This greying is happening across Germany, which has the world’s fourth-oldest population.
Read more at https://www.channelnewsasia.com/news/cnainsider/arnsberg-germany-dementia-friendly-ageing-long-term-care-10746500
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