So in the end I took him off the lot and we thought wed see how he went. Well, he never sat down – basically. He just went round and round and round and round. Hed come home, he wouldn’t even sit down for his meals at the care centre, at the day centre. I made him sit down because I’ve got a lap tray so I put his, I do now put his meal on his lap and virtually pin him down.

But the rest of the evening it was just round and round and up the stairs and out the house and round this little circuit until it was driving me mad. And then I thought well calm down, what’s the worse thing about it. The worse thing about it is it’s irritating. Take that away and just let him go. Now weve had to change psychiatrist and CPN because now hes under county for his care plan, protocol said that we can’t access the psychiatrist or the CPN. So I’ve got a new psychiatrist and a new CPN.

The psychiatrist when I went to see him said to me. ‘Well now look at it like this he said ‘perhaps [name] would like to be able to sit down and rest, but can’t because this is obsessional and he actually can’t make himself sit down. But hes, it’s wearing him out. So look at it like that and maybe it might be a good idea to medicate him. So that’s and I thought about that afterwards and I thought yes, you’re probably right, you know he just cannot sit down. Now if hes absolutely worn out and hes still got this compulsion to walk it must be terrible for him.

So I started to alter my thinking on it and the other things I’d thought when I’d read these articles from the Alzheimer’s magazine I thought I wonder if the people who write some of these things have actually had experience of living with somebody with some of these problems that dementia brings and know just how stressful it can be having somebody doing something time after time after time after time until you’re nearly screaming at them to stop. And it’s not doing you any good and it’s not doing them any good, so maybe the medication needs to be a halfway house.

So I’ve got over my ethical dilemma of this business of medication because I think there is a time and a place for it. In my circumstance it may, you may say or people may think well it’s for the benefit of the carer, well it may be for the benefit of the carer, but I mean lets face it you’ve got to look after the carer, because if the carer goes to the wall so does the person who’s got dementia. But if you’re also thinking of it in terms of the best, for the betterment of the sufferer then I think there is a place for it definitely as long as you’re careful with it.

If you can deal with the behaviour without the medication and you, have got experienced expert carers and nurses who are able to deal with it without the medication obviously that’s better. But there comes a point at which they do need medication and my mother is on medication and I think it is right that she is on medication.

I then think that, what doent always happen is the medication is not always monitored enough and I think as with my mother’s case and I am sure is the case with a lot of other people in a lot of homes the medication is used more than is necessary for the convenience of staff because it keeps people docile and it keeps them sleeping in the chair.

And I realise my mother needed medication because she was distressed all the time and anxious and worried and she, so she needed something just to take that edge off. And when I saw her sleeping, sleeping, sleeping, and very confused and I thought how much of this is Alzheimer’s and how much is the medication?

So I actually went to see her doctor. She is so lucky she has got this lovely young girl – I say young girl; shes probably in her 30s! – doctor, who is really nice and very thorough and very keen that we work together. And I hope I’m not a threat because we, are nice to each other.

And I actually made an appointment at the surgery and I went to say that, I just want your advice but I’m not sure, I just wondered, I don’t know about these things, but I’m wondering if my mother is very heavily sedated and whether there was any mileage, whether they could lift the sedation and if that made her too agitated whether there was some sort of anti-depressant because I know anti- depressants can work in a different way, they make you easier about life.

She said “Oh I see what you’re saying. I don’t actually know but I’ll phone the psycho-geriatric specialist and have a chat.” And the message came back that he thought it was worth a try and so that’s what they’ve tried and they’ve lessened the tranquillisers, given her an anti-depressant as well and it may change tomorrow, you know, gradually it may change but at the moment my mother has got back a better quality of life and she’s not.

So she’s talking, she doesn’t talk sense but she’s got the energy to talk. She’ll laugh and when somebody will come up to her and say “Hello” and shell smile and if they say something that’s a bit risqué shell go Oh I Don’t know. And that’s how she used to in the old days, so she’s got back a little bit of her self by the right balance of medication.

So I think if it’s at all possible you don’t use medication at all and obviously the professionals know better than I, when the medication should be brought in but I think theres a danger of it being used unwisely, indiscriminately if you like. And I think it’s a shame that it cant be used more wisely that there aren’t, well I think it’s like education isn’t it, health and education are under funded and under-resourced and undermanned. And in an ideal world if there were sufficient people looked after a limited number of patients then that sort of thing could be carried out. And I know in this hospice in [town] that’s what happens.

I don’t think it would have happened to my mother if I hadn’t been there actually, I think shed be, have a less better quality of life. Yes, there comes a point at which medication is definitely needed because she couldn’t, it would have been cruel to let her live a life of anxiety all the time and she was pacing and worrying and eaten up with anxiety so she needed something, it was just a question of the right thing and people being encouraged to take the time and trouble to get it right. It seems right at the moment.

My husband used to go into hospital for two weeks respite care every two months or so. And I took him, a man who could walk a couple of miles around the village, no problem, every day, and I went to collect a man who was in a wheelchair, couldn’t stand, he was zonked out. And for the first time ever I challenged medical authority and that is so difficult to do, because I’ve always assumed up to that point the medics knew what they were about, but they had introduced so many drugs to [my husband], that he was completely and utterly zonked out, he couldn’t even stand.

He was able to go to the loo, but they’d put him in incontinence pads and so I asked that he be taken off every drug that had been introduced in that fortnight. He had to stay longer in the hospital until he was fit to come home. And what had happened of course is that they’d found his behaviour rather difficult to handle and so they had run to the medicine bottle. And I think over-medication as a form of restraint is a national scandal and we carers should not be afraid to make waves when it happens.