ABSTRACT
In his book, The Pure Elements of Time, Be’er wrote,
After all the merciful Madonnas carrying an adorable baby on their lap, Madonnas that have populated Christian art for twenty generations, here is a reverse Pieta: an adult with the plump and impassive face of a baby carrying in its arms a diapered baby with the face of a grownup woman. He means me, I am the one cared for by a sick old mother. The stinking fruit of modern medicine which extends a person’s life but can’t grant him a minimal quality of life and which throws into the arms of the sons sick and stumbling parents who need somebody to help them on their shoulders.
(Be’er, 2003, p. 278) The extension of life expectancy in the 21st century and the resulting increase in the size of the elderly population as a whole and of elderly persons with dementia in particular, requires us to prepare to provide more assistance in both institutional and domestic contexts, and to remember that the primary caregivers will continue to be family members.