Dementia

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We can't do it by clinical testing," he adds.

"I'm very happy to give away my brain," says Sister Michele Elfering, 76, who has been with the order since she was 18, and has taught maths and reading in Chicago schools, rising to become a headmistress, "I'd do anything I can do to help with Alzheimer's.

I've seen so many sisters get it.

It begins with them being forgetful; starting a conversation and not being able to finish it.

Then they forget where things are in the kitchen.

They'll go for a glass of water and start looking in the condiments drawer.

You can see it happening.

You're very aware of it, though it's very slow.

Sometimes they'll have a strong memory of their childhood and no memory of what they did five minutes ago." Scientists call this "the photograph album effect".

Imagine your memory as one great photograph album.

Then imagine that, every hour, from your childhood on, you take a snapshot and put it in the album.

When Alzheimer's first sets in, you stop putting new pictures in, but you retain the pictures you took several years ago.

Then, as the disease really takes hold, you gradually erase the past altogether - rather like ripping the pages out of the album.

The number of people in Britain with Alzheimer's is expected to triple by 2050 as life expectancies lengthen: the chances of getting the disease double every five years after 65.

If you live to the age of 85, there's a one in two probability that you'll get it.

Keeping the brain active is thou...

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For that reason we made sure there was always someone there at meal times otherwise the meal tray was put on her table and taken away about an hour later untouched.

Someone also stayed with her overnight as she would get up and wander around as she was confused about where she was.

They still have not been able to cure the sore on her back after several weeks because it had got so bad Patient's son Health system 'neglects elderly' There were only two nights where there was no one with her, the first she fell and banged her head and the second night she fell and fractured her shoulder.

When we asked the doctor what had happened, we were told this quite often happens with elderly patients as they did not have the staff to monitor them as much as was needed.

It was obvious my mother would be unable to return home so after several weeks my mother was transferred to another ward when we tried to arrange to have moved to a nursing home.

While there she developed a heavy cold and we were unable to get her to eat or drink.

We made the staff aware of this and they said there was nothing to worry about and they would monitor her.

After several days the situation seemed to be getting worse.

Again we approached the staff only to be reassured there was nothing to worry about but we requested she was seen by a doctor.

'Frightened' Two days later she was seen by thee doctor and then had to be re-admitted to the main hospital with severe dehydration and pneumonia.

It too...

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Mr Robinson - best-known for playing the part of Baldrick in the Blackadder series - said he felt his mother had been treated as a "managerial problem which needed to be coped with".

"The home that she went into was pretty good.

I wasn't pointing the finger at a particular home, much more at what our attitudes are like," he said.

"I mean, it strikes me as quite extraordinary that if you foster a child you can get up to £300 a week.

When you have responsibility for someone in that situation you feel that it's just your own personal, private tragedy Tony Robinson System 'neglects elderly' "If you are a carer, looking after someone who's elderly and infirm - sacrificing your life and your career for them - you get £45 a week.

"Now that to me is a vivid demonstration of where our priorities are crazily wrong." He also said training for carers needed to be improved, as did pay to deal with the high turnover of staff.

"In elderly people's homes, the training is lousy - it's better than it was but it's still kind of tick-box training that makes sure that they have enough calories and don't get burned to death," he said.

"But as far as thinking of the elderly in terms of human happiness, there is very little of that going on." I was angry with myself too, because I thought I could have done better Tony Robinson He said he had made the film after becoming "angrier and angrier" over the years.

"Partly because of the way our society marginal...