Foreign Correspondent: Sept 1

This week on Foreign Correspondent, families in China are stretched to the limit as they do their best to look after a loved one with dementia.

Zhen remembers her wedding day well. When her father gave his speech, he urged her to have two children. But now Zhen is unsure whether she even wants to have one.

Not long after her wedding, Zhen’s father Liang was diagnosed with dementia. He was in his 50s. Now Zhen and her mother are caring for Liang full time. And Zhen doesn’t want to impose that burden on her children.

“The way I see it,” Zhen explains, “without kids, if I develop the same condition as my dad, with what I know now, I can just send myself off to a nursing home and it’s done. I won’t put any extra pressure on my kids, and they won’t have to endure any depression or anything like that.”

It’s a problem many families in China are grappling with. As the population ages, dementia is on the rise. But there’s little awareness of the disease and few government services.

In Australia, around 65% of patients with dementia live at home but in China more than 96% of people with the condition are looked after by their families. The obligation to care for your elders is deeply rooted in Chinese culture.

“That’s probably the traditional Chinese concept of filial piety, but the reality is you can’t fulfill your duty,” says Zhen.

ABC reporter Lydia Feng presents this intimate and moving program about China’s hidden epidemic.

Working with local filmmakers, we take you inside three families stretched to the limit as they do their best to look after a loved one with dementia.

We meet a widow and daughter living in the countryside, where there are even fewer services for the elderly and their families.

We spend time with a blind couple in Beijing, where despite all hardships, Uncle Xing is still utterly devoted to his wife of nearly 50 years.

“I’ve looked after only one woman my whole life. She needs special care,” says Uncle Xing. “I feel bad if she suffers.”

“We’re not ready. We’re not even prepared for the challenge of aged care as a whole, let alone dementia care.” says social worker Wang Shihong, whose organisation helps support the elderly.

Shihong believes the public needs to be educated about the problem.

“The symptoms are showing up but they’re not taken as something that needs medical attention,” she says. “If it can be spotted early in its development, through screening for example, more can be done to slow the patient’s deterioration before it’s too late.”

This film is a rare insight into the struggle of ordinary families in China to deal with a debilitating but little understood condition.

8pm Thursday on ABC.