Dementia and its toll on working carers: levels of depression, stress and family conflict are rising, says study

Dementia affects five to eight per cent of people over 65, and with no cure, the condition has a huge effect on carers

A middle-aged Hong Kong man talks about caring for his mother, who has dementia, and how he tries to cope by using patience and humour

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Amy Lung and her son Simon Leung. Leung says his mother’s dementia was diagnosed in late 2016, but it has worsened in the past year. Photo: Kylie Knott

Published: 6:25pm, 2 Nov 2020Updated: 8:01pm, 3 Nov 2020

Amy Lung was watching television in her Hong Kong flat when she thought she could smell something burning. Panicked, she went to the building management office, where she was told everything was OK.

Instead of returning to the flat in Sham Shui Po, West Kowloon, Lung, 82, wandered onto the street. It was 10pm on September 28. She was found 30 hours later when someone called police after seeing her on a highway in Tsim Sha Tsui, 4km from home. Her bare feet were covered in blisters (she had lost her slippers). She had also lost the key to her flat.

Lung suffers from dementia, a broad term for the gradual deterioration in memory, thinking, behaviour and the ability to perform everyday activities. Alzheimer’s disease, the most common type, accounts for more than 70 per cent of dementia cases, says the World Health Organisation.

It is estimated that five to eight out of every 100 people over 65 years of age have dementia. Experts predict that by 2050 it will affect a third of Hongkongers aged 80 or over. There is no cure.

When Amy Lung, who suffers from dementia, went missing, her son Simon Leung took to social media to spread the word. Photo: courtesy Simon Leung

Simon Leung, who reported his mother missing and spread the word with family and friends on social media, spent hours in a police car looking for his mother.