Malcolm Pointon Case Study

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Introduction Malcolm Pointon was born in 1940. He was a famous pianist, a lecturer and a husband to Barbara Pointon, his wife of more than 20 years. In 1991, he was diagnosed with the Alzheimer’s disease and battled it for 16 years before dying in February 2007. His wife, Barbara, explained that the first clue were his piano skills getting worse, as “he started making mistakes in his once-perfect piano playing”. After getting diagnosed, Barbara decided to allow Paul Watson to document the development of Malcolm’s disease, which continued for 11 years until he died. Physical Effects One of the most ‘famous’ Alzheimer’s effects is the memory loss, that is one of the very first symptoms of the disease. The person begins to forget things that …show more content…

This is quite a challenge for Barbara and Malcolm as he is unable to properly express what he feels and wants, and so his wife has to infer and that isn’t always correct. This could lead to tensions, such as the time when Barbara got angry and shouted at him, and he punched her in …show more content…

This can be [3] “very distressing for everyone involved and can damage relationships between people with Alzheimer 's disease and their carers. In turn, this can make it more likely that the person with the condition will need to be cared for in a care home.” Barbara was also considering giving Malcolm to a care home and had people who helped her take care of him, because she wasn’t able to cope with him as he was aggressive and simply no the man she knew for all those years. If Malcolm was ‘awake’ for some parts, he would definitely feel sad that she was struggling and he was unable to express how sorry he is or how much he loved her. Not being able to comfort her must’ve been hard for him and might have made him feel useless and trapped in his own body. As with every incurable diagnosis, there are lots of emotional challenges for both the diagnosed person, as well as the family. Simply coping with the diagnosis is a huge challenge to overcome, there are many emotions involved and the emotions of people with Alzheimer’s are really affected by the disease so they might feel overwhelmed by

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