I have some good friends, a British couple who have both just turned 77. They have been together for nearly 60 years & have have two children & several grand children back in the UK. They’ve been in France for 20 years & have worked here (self employed mechanic & general builder, painting & decorating).
They are, obviously, fully in the French health system & have both had a lot of experience of it over the past several years.
However, they are now faced with the problem of the wife’s diminishing mental health & the husband (after three years of coping) has reached the end of his tether. Yes, he should have got her to voluntarily see a specialist a long time ago but that didn’t happen & he’s now faced with trying to get his wife to an appointment with her MT that she thinks is some big plot against her.
The biggest problem is not the general symptoms of dementia (although they certainly exist) but of her believing that her husband of nearly 60 years is actually someone else & that the real one has gone walkabout without telling her what he is doing.
This condition is called Capgras syndrome or the Capgras deulsion. If you’ve ever witnessed it, as I now have, it is very hard ro deal with, let alone live with on a day to day basis. In our friend’s case it’s not full time, but the periods of recurrence have become more frequent & longer, to the extent of near permanence.
Clearly she/they have to get to see a medical professional who can at least give a proper diagnosis & advise on what to do, as there is no cure as such.
Herein lies the problem; although both of the couple were competent French speakers the wife (who used to be the better linguist) has effectively given up talking or understanding it. The husband has, through necessity, had to up his language game but is, in my view, a long way from properly describing the problem/s accurately to a third party in French.
Due to the intransigence of the patient an escalating series of appointments & referrals in different medical cabinets is going to be very hard to achieve, if not impossible. What is required is a home visit from someone who is a cross between a mental health professional & a social worker, with an understanding of English.
I say that because I feel that the couple are on a knife edge of endangering themselves, either through potential violence in one direction or another, or succumbing to the despair of the situation (on the husband’s part) & deciding to end things. In that event the wife would simply fade away as she has ceased pretty much any kind of catering or domestic duty. Yes, it really has got that serious.
My wife & I try to keep an eye on them but we can’t do much more than sympathise, make tea, & be on call (which has happened a lot recently).
Has anyone out there had experience of anything similar, or has any knowledge of the right part of the health or social care service to contact? Fortunately my own 20+ years experience of the health service here has only given me experience of the way physical ailments are dealt with.
