TV tip
“37 Grad” report on dementia in a man in his mid-fifties
Bernhard’s (r) friends are always there for him. Photo: Jgen Todt/ZDF/dpa
© dpa-infocom GmbH
A man in his prime, in the middle of life. Then he developed dementia at an early age. How long can his environment maintain something like normality? A gripping report.
It seems to be a typical German garden party with a cheerful host at the grill. Bernhard is 55. He loves making paella for his family and friends. But it’s not as easy for the man at the grill as it used to be.
Bernhard gets confused with his recipe. Because the electrical engineer from Freiburg fell ill with frontotemporal dementia a few years ago. The mid-fifties have increasing difficulties with memory and speech. The disease also changes his personality. The report “His life with forgetting – 55, diagnosis of dementia and still in the middle” of the series “37 degrees” on Tuesday at 10:15 p.m. on ZDF accompanies him in everyday life.
Wife Ute (53) now has a general power of attorney to regulate everything necessary for her husband. Her role in marriage has changed a lot. ‘Now I’m the confidante, Caretaker. I hope he doesn’t call me “mother” at some point.” She has to keep the family together in this extraordinary situation and look after the 13 and 18-year-old sons alone. The patient is very lucky that his family and circle of friends are there for him. “Bernhard is happy and we’re fine,” says the midwife about her husband.
His buddy Jörg, who has known him since he was a student, reports: “I’ve already noticed that we have to take more care when it comes to doing things that Benni used to be able to do on his own.” It’s a challenge: “But we’re taking it step by step and making the best of it.” His office community also sticks by him and bravely ignores it when Bernhard turns up his hard rock music deafeningly loud in the middle of the working day. You know: It is the illness that makes him ignorant.
Bernhard is one of the 1.6 million people in Germany with dementia. Three percent of these people are younger than 65 years. The disease is particularly bad for these people and those around them, because they are torn from an active life.
The film by Sibylle Smolka shows how Bernhard’s wife and friends try to enable him to have a normal everyday life: he drives to work every day, meets up with his friends to play volleyball, goes on weekend trips and cooks his paella for everyone. This is an extraordinary life for a person with dementia.
But the more the disease progresses, the greater the challenges: Bernhard really wants to ride a motorbike himself, but that is no longer justifiable. His family account has to be blocked, he loses his bearings and refuses medical examinations. How does his environment deal with it?