Caring for Our Aging Parents - Lessons from Italy

Our visit to Italy included a brief overnight at Fabrizio's family home in Velletri, a town in the Alban Hills about an hour outside of Rome. Fabrizio, Wanja and the kids come every weekend to this lovely old villa, and not just because they want to escape the heat in Rome.

You see, Fabrizio's Dad has Alzheimer's disease. And though he has a nurse who stays with him during the week, Fabrizio comes to stay with him most weekends, a duty he shares with his sibs who live nearby. They feed, shave and bathe their Dad, and most importantly, watch to be sure he does not wander off, as he has done on more than one occasion.

I am moved, not just by Fabrizio's personal attention to his Dad, but by the family's acceptance of this lovely childlike man in their midst. His dad joined us at the dinner table, and although he did not speak, he smiled a lot. Like a small child, he was taken from the table when he was finished, and sat on the nearby sofa while we finished dinner. Then off to bed early, Fabrizio holding his hand as he led him upstairs to his room. No apologies were made to us, no complaints. My children did not skip a beat. Fabrizio's Dad was simply part of the family, just the way he was.

This sort of loving acceptance is exactly what NY Times writer Denise Grady writes about this week in an article entitled, "Zen and the art of Coping with Alzeimers".

If Dad wants to polish off the duck sauce in a Chinese restaurant like it’s a bowl of soup, why not? If Grandma wants to help out by washing the dishes but makes a mess of it, leave her to it and just rewash them later when she’s not looking. Pull out old family pictures to give the patient something to talk about. Learn the art of fragmented, irrational conversation and follow the patient’s lead instead of trying to control the dialogue.

Basically, just tango on. And hope somebody will do the same for you when your time comes. Unless the big breakthrough happens first.

Along with acceptance, my friends express an unquestioning belief that care of their parents is just another part of life. Wanja tells me stories of friends in similar circumstances doing much the same for their parents as Fabrizio does for his dad.

"We don't have nursing homes here," Wanja tells me. "This is just what we do."

She's right. Italy has few nursing homes, and in almost all families, care of aging parents happens in the home. Acccording to a 1997 survey of nursing home care in 10 countries:

Italy has a national heath care system with universal coverage, modelled on the UK's National Health Service [20]. There is, however, a major difference, in that no provision was made for the long-term care of elderly people. There is no uniform policy and there are literally hundreds of local solutions to meet the needs of elderly people... in Italy the care of elderly people is almost exclusively the concern of families.

The need for good home care in Italy has created a huge market for caregivers in Italy, a need that apparently is being filled in large part by Ukranian caregivers. It's a patchwork of a solution to a growing problem, as the average life expectancy in Italy rises and families with two working parents struggle to keep their parents at home.

And it speaks of a nation that still has the family at its center.

Though our stay in Villetri was brief, it has left an indelible impression upon me. As I watch my own parents aging, I can only pray that if the need ever arises, my sibs and I can care for them with the same grace that my dear Italian friends have shown in caring for their Dad.