‘More reliable’: tattoo parlour in China offers to ink contact details on Alzheimer’s sufferers for free to replace help cards
- Tattoo parlour owner says all her shops will offer service free of charge to people with Alzheimer’s
- She says tattoos are ‘more reliable’ than the help cards and medical ID bracelets which are easily lost by confused sufferers
A tattoo parlour in China has offered to ink contact details on the bodies of elderly people with Alzheimer’s disease for free as a replacement for help cards, winning support online.
On July 9, the owner of three parlours in the southern province of Guangdong, surnamed Zhang, posted on her Xiaohongshu social media account that all three shops would provide the service permanently.
A tattooist herself, Zhang said the new method could be a “more reliable” alternative to help cards or medical alert ID bracelets many patients are currently asked to wear in case they get lost or confused.
People who suffer from Alzheimer’s are subject to progressive memory loss, change of personality and incapability to perform daily routines.
In a comment left on a report by Chinese media outlet Gongfu Caijing about Zhang’s offer, a person who claimed to be a member of staff at a nursing home said that patients with severe Alzheimer's can quickly get out-of-control and take off their help cards and GPS watches.
“It might look cruel to tattoo them, but it can help people contact the patient’s family members immediately,” she said.
Zhang said the advertisement was inspired by other tattooists who inked contact information on Alzheimer’s patients.
Last year, a tattoo artist in eastern China’s Shandong province inked her phone number on the arm of her 75-year-old grandmother after she was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease.
In February, a parlour owner in eastern China’s Zhejiang province said a woman in her 80s came to him with her family and had the phone numbers of her son, daughter and grandson tattooed onto her right hand.
The tattoo artist, surnamed Chen, said the woman initially feared the pain but endured it for her family.
Zhang said she wanted “to do something meaningful for society” using her professional skills.
She added that she would only conduct the procedure with the consent of the patient and their family.
“Some patients are willing to be tattooed when they are sober to reduce their family members’ burden,” Zhang told Gongfu Caijing in reference to Alzheimer’s patients.
Zhang told Zhengguan News that she had already provided the service to a few patients and received more than 40 consultations after her viral post.
Many online commenters also supported her charitable act.
“While anything else the patients wear could be lost, a tattoo is the last helpless resort,” said one person.
A few people disapproved of the idea, arguing that tattooing might cause already confused patients pain and distress, while one person who claimed to be a medical worker said: “A tattoo might make it difficult for medical workers to find the veins, which are less visible on the elderly.”
But another person disagreed and said: “Compared with the pain of getting lost, the pain from a tattoo is much lighter.”
