PAUL Moynihan was diagnosed with early onset dementia at 54-years-old. His wife Helen talks to Kate Liptrot about their experiences of living with the condition.

HELEN Moynihan sees the man she fell in love with every time her husband Paul smiles at her.

Paul was diagnosed with early onset dementia at just 54, the condition has progressed rapidly and it now means that at 57 he is being cared for in a York hospital assessment unit while waiting to move into a care home.

Helen has witnessed her husband go from being an outgoing, fun loving and confident man to becoming confused and very anxious.

"This disease has taken away our future and all Paul's dreams, he was a very strong, adventurous, funny, loyal and very respected man.

"We had so many plans. I sometimes think, why him?"

But Helen said her heart lifts when she arrives for her daily visits and he greets her with a smile, "All he has to do when I go in is smile at me and it means so much."

The living room of their home in Clifton is covered with picture memories of their happy life together. Photographs show their life in Spain, of Paul with one of his sons, and the beaming couple on their wedding day.

Helen and Paul have been together for 15 years having met in the Pack of Cards pub in Acomb where Helen worked as a bar maid, and Paul, a builder, went with work friends.

They had returned to York after a number of years living in Spain, when Paul was attacked.

He was walking down an alleyway in Bell Farm with a friend when three youngsters on bikes bumped into them. After an annoyed Paul said something to them, they returned with baseball bats and attacked him.

It was the brain injury caused by this attack in 2008 which doctors now believe caused the vascular dementia he is affected by.

The first signs appeared a year later, when Paul began to forget the most basic things - walking into a room and forgetting why he was there and even the most basic building skills at work.

While workmates tried to cover for him, Paul said they couldn't continue carrying him and he quit work after struggling for five months.

Experts suggested his difficulties may be due to burst blood vessels on the brain, but Paul's symptoms continued to worsen.

"I was working full time at a delicatessen and I had to lessen my hours," Helen said, "It got to the point where I would go to work and he would be getting locked out the house or he would be ringing me and asking where he was."

Eventually Paul was diagnosed with early onset dementia and Helen realised how unwell he had become when she went to see her mother and she received a call from a relative who had found him in a distressed state in Burton Stone Lane. He was devastated he couldn't work out how to get home and was convinced he had lost his dog.

"People think it's just losing your memory, but it's more than that," she said, "Your vision goes and you can suffer from depression and anxiety. Your concept of appropriate social behaviour goes.

"But because he still looks young - he was a fit man and he has tattoos and a bald head - people would think he was drunk or on drugs."

As Paul's behaviour became more unpredictable he needed to be taken into full time care and an arrangement was made for him to be sectioned in order to take him into hospital - a traumatic ordeal which saw an extremely distressed Paul taken into a police van following a struggle.

The situation has taken its toll on Helen, who said she has taken antidepressants to cope, and is burdened by a feeling of guilt for carrying on with every day aspects of life.

She has also been left feeling upset and frustrated at the barriers she has faced in accessing benefits to support them as Paul became seriously ill and she became his full time carer.

But there are positives. While many care homes will only taken dementia patients aged 65 and over, Helen has found a new care home in Kexby which will take Paul, and which has outdoor areas she knows he will love.

"He still has moments when he can talk really well," Helen said, "He knows I'm his wife, he smiles at me and he says 'you are the best thing that's ever happened to me'.

"People need to know it's not just an older person's disease and more needs to be done for younger sufferers, particularly with care homes.

"It's not an old peoples' disease any more."

* Helen is determined to fight for better research into Alzheimer's Disease and is taking on a challenge to raise £4000 for the Alzheimer's Society. In March 2016 she will take on a week-long challenge to trek the Grand Canyon.

To sponsor her, go to www.justgiving.com/Helen-Moynihan2/


What is dementia?

Dementia describes different brain disorders that trigger a loss of brain function. These conditions are all usually progressive and eventually severe.

Alzheimer's disease is the most common type of dementia, affecting 62 per cent of those diagnosed.

Other types of dementia include; vascular dementia affecting 17 per cent of those diagnosed, mixed dementia affecting 10 per cent of those diagnosed.

Symptoms of dementia include memory loss, confusion and problems with speech and understanding. Dementia is a terminal condition.


Who is affected?

There are 850,000 people with dementia in the UK, with numbers set to rise to over 1 million by 2025. This will soar to 2 million by 2051.

There are over 40,000 people under 65 with dementia in the UK.

More than 25,000 people from black, Asian and minority ethnic groups in the UK are affected.


How much does it cost?

Two thirds of the cost of dementia is paid by people with dementia and their families.

Unpaid carers supporting someone with dementia save the economy £11 billion a year.

Dementia is one of the main causes of disability later in life, ahead of cancer, cardiovascular disease and stroke. As a country we spend much less on dementia than on these other conditions.


What about treatments and research?

There is no cure for Alzheimer's disease or any other type of dementia. Delaying the onset of dementia by five years would halve the number of deaths from the condition, saving 30,000 lives a year.

Dementia research is desperately underfunded, the Alzheimer's Society said. The government invests eight times less in dementia research than cancer research.


Call the Alzheimer's Society National Dementia Helpline on 0300 222 1122