Yang Guoyuan's wife Wu Lianfang has to look after him full time. His son and daughter also take leave from work to care for him, which resulted in the son losing his job and the daughter taking a salary cut.

In an unusual case, Chen Binqiang, a 37-year-old middle school teacher in Pan'an County, Zhejiang Province, has managed to juggle his teaching job and care for his mother, a victim of Alzheimer's disease.

Chen teaches at Lengshui Town, about 30 km away from his home in Pan'an County seat. He used to reside in a school dormitory during school days and return home only on weekends.

In 2007, Chen's mother was diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease. His father had already passed away and his two sisters were married and lived far away. Chen's wife, a kindergarten teacher, had to work and take care of their son. So Chen decided to take his mother to the school dormitory to look after her.

For five years, Chen has been teaching full time while helping his mother with personal hygiene and meals between classes and after school.

Social concern

Alzheimer's disease was considered a private family affair, and families tended to keep quiet about it for fear of stigma. But as the Chinese population ages, more attention has been paid to seniors' problems, including Alzheimer's disease.

As of the end of 2011, China had more than 185 million people, or 13.7 percent of the country's total population, aged 60 or above, according to data released by the Ministry of Civil Affairs on March 1. Li Liguo, Minister of Civil Affairs, said that by the end of 2015, the country will have 221 million over 60, 24 million of whom will be over 80 years old.

In September, several media outlets, including CCTV, proposed for a change to the Chinese name of Alzheimer's disease. The disease's Chinese name is literally senile dementia, which is considered discriminative.

Wang Yuchu, a commentator for Youth.cn, an Internet portal sponsored by the Central Committee of the Communist Youth League of China, said that caring for seniors involves more than simply changing the name of the disease.

Wang said that families have difficulty taking care of sufferers of Alzheimer's disease at home, whereas institutions catering to the elderly are also ill prepared.

Publicly run elderly care institutions in China are chronically overcrowded and getting a spot can be difficult. Most institutions refuse sufferers of Alzheimer's disease.

According to China Daily, in a country where millions suffer from dementia and Alzheimer's only a few public nursing homes accept dementia patients, among them the Beijing Songtang Caring Hospice, Beijing No.3 Social Welfare Institute and Shanghai No. 3 Social Welfare Institute.

"We only admit those who fit our admission standards," said Zhou Ka, Vice President of the Beijing No. 1 Social Welfare Institute, a highly sought-after public facility. "We don't admit elderly people with psychosocial diseases such as Alzheimer's disease." Zhou said that the institute has neither the facilities nor appropriate professional staff for such patients.

Many private nursing homes also shut their doors to sufferers of Alzheimer's disease due to the challenging nursing requirements. As a result, most patients are confined to their homes, or even worse, to mental hospitals.

In April, the Beijing Civil Affairs Bureau said that it would make policy requiring each of the city's 16 districts and counties to build a special nursing home primarily to cater to sufferers of Alzheimer's disease.

"The government should actively work to ease the burden on patients' families," Wang said.

(See pages 42-43 for more on Alzheimer's disease)

Email us at: wanghairong@bjreview.com