The engineer in him stands up to Alzheimer’s disease

Sitting in one corner of the hall, 72-year-old Rangaswamy tries to build a house with some plastic blocks. Despite several attempts, he is not able to put them together with his soft fingers. In frustration and anger, he leaves them and leans back on his chair with a grumpy face. Staring at the blocks for a few minutes, he gets back to relaunch the failed mission. Rangaswamy, a retired senior engineer in the Indian Railways, has been suffering from Alzheimer’s disease.

The former railway employee is at present housed in the Nightingale Centre for Aged and Alzheimer’s. According to doctors, he no longer remembers his glorious past as a senior engineer, who undertook many complex construction works, including the development of Bangalore-Mysore railway line. Yet the engineer in him is alive and kicking as he puts together a few plastic blocks.

“We can seldom understand what he is saying neither can he understand what we are telling him. The only way to communicate is by touching him. To tell him that we care about him, I will hold his palm for a while and then he would smile, but for a few moments,” Govindan P, one of the volunteers and a close friend of Rangaswamy, said.

“Looking after them is like taking care of kids. They would try to run and shout if stopped, but the moment they see someone, they fear. They walk to a corner and sit silently. All it takes to cheer them is a tickle,” said Rosamma, a nurse at the centre.

Dr Soumya Hegde, consultant psychiatrist, Nightingale Centre said that Rangaswamy began showing symptoms of Alzheimer’s five years back. Recently, when the disease reached advanced stages, his aged wife, who was taking care of him, could no longer handle him. Thus, he was brought to the centre three months back.

“Like most cases, even he has lost most of his memory, because of which, he behaves like a stubborn child many times. He is possessive about his chair, those who take care of him and even his plastic blocks,” said Dr Hegde.