Cure and devotion . Mirella knows that everyday, these will be her two main objectives to go on.

The reasons responsible of Alzheimer are not completely clear yet. Many are the mechanisms involved.

One of the most difficult aspects that the family members have to accept is the ill person’s progressive memory loss till he doesn’t recognise his loved ones. About 5 years after the beginning of the disease Luigi stopped recognising his own wife.

All of a sudden Luigi stopped eating on his own. The presence of food and cutlery in front of him didn’t stimulate any automatic reaction.

Alzheimer disease is the most common form of senile dementia, dementia means loss of the cognitive skills (thought process, memory and reasoning). However cognitive loss doesn’t mean loss of sensibility.

“I tried to stimulate him…Luigi this is… what’s your name… he looked at me, his eyes two star but so empty he couldn’t remember, he didn’t know…” [Mirella]

“He was born between the mountains and he moved to Rome only because he loved me so much, so that he spent all his life in Rome. It wasn’t easy for him, but he did.... how can I forget a person like that? “ [Mirella]

During the first phase of the disease, help during everyday activities is marginal. But as Alzheimer advances, while slowly destroying the memory and the cognitive skills, it blocks the patient from doing even the easiest actions. Washing her husband has always been a difficult task. Luigi is built broader than Mirella and this didn’t help while carrying out her everyday jobs.

Mirella faced many difficulties such as the loss of dialog with her husband: no more proper answer to simple questions from him.

It seems confirmed that beta-protein concentration in the brain, responsible of degeneration at neural level, starts 20/30 years before the first symptoms’ appearance. Thanks to PET is possible to prematurely notice the percentage of beta-protein concentration, in a near future it will be possible to identify non-toxic substances able to contrast degenerative circumstances.

In 1901, Dr. Alois Alzheimer, a German psychiatrist, interviewed one of his patients. He showed her many objects and then asked her what has she seen. She couldn’t remember. At the beginning he classified her behaviour as “amnesia disorder”, in reality she was the first patient who was diagnosed with what was later on known as Alzheimer disease.

“oh yes, he used to say he didn’t feel well…but he couldn’t explain what he was feeling…maybe he didn’t talk about it to not make me feel sad…” [Mirella]

One morning Luigi lost his balance and fell after hitting his head on a side table. He received 9 stitches after falling. The lack of balance and the loss of points of reference are a consequence of the presence of plaques in the brain.

Although dementia mainly affects older people, there is a growing awareness of cases that start before the age of 65. After the age of 65, the chances of developing dementia double approximately every 5 years.

Mirella never gave up as she was convinced that every single gesture would have brought relief and would have been the actual cure to nurse Luigi back to health.

71 years old. Mirella brings her husband his birthday cake. Through 6 years of the disease , Mirella has always celebrated her husband’s birthday.

Mirella and Luigi have been married for 43 years. 43 years of sharing, of difficulties passed together, of smiles and happy moments; a family, a house, projects realised together. If on one side memories fade away, on the other they give you the strength to go on. Mirella and Luigi in the picture on their twenty-fifth wedding anniversary.

“He couldn’t recognize me anymore… when you visited him, after a while he asked me… Mirella, who was that guy? I was really impressed when he was talking like that” [Mirella]

".. I always thought it would be immortal, for what he did, for as I considered, for everything. Until the day I saw that things were beginning to change ...."

“.…and now…now I only have these pictures left as memories, nothing else, nothing else” [Mirella]

“It still seems like he’s here by my side… I only know one thing for sure and that is that three quarters of my life are gone with him…” [Mirella]

After six years since the disease was diagnosed, Luigi died in May 2011 at home next to his wife and his family.