Mr. Rütter, your mother is suffering from dementia. In a TV report at Vox, they give insight into your everyday life, visit you in the nursing home and report on the various facets of dementia. How old your mother was when you fell ill?
My mother is now 78 and the diagnosis we have received when she was 72 years old. She suffers from frontotemporal dementia. This Form of dementia destroyed within the brain, the social skills and that the victims are often unable to respond in a socially adequate way.
How have you not noticed that with your mother something is wrong?
The diagnosis we received five years ago. But I am of the opinion that my mother is already sick much earlier. To be precise, I had this impression already from childhood. My mother was as a young woman, social, non-conformist, you responded often inappropriate. I remember, for example, of the funeral service for my late cousin. As my mother comforted their mother with the words: “Yes, I can understand how sad You are, Martin is not often at home.” That was pretty bizarre. Has expressed also an experience at one of my Live Shows ten years ago. There she was, next to 3000 other people in the audience and came on five minutes before the start of the Show past the Security man on the stage, and began the people in the first row to say: “I am the mother of Martin Rütter, please leave the first row, because here only the family sits.” Of course that was completely absurd, also, because my family has never been in the first row sat. This totally socially inappropriate behaviour, there were so many years.
Dementia can change people fundamentally. What was your mother for a woman – before the diagnosis?
That was when we went with my mother for the first time to see a specialist. In contrast, my mother had previously, of course, put up a fight. The Doctor turned to my mother two questions and then asked a question, to be alone with us, to their relatives, to speak. I’ll never forget it, as she said then, stunned us: “It can’t be Serious that you sit here and not know what is going on with her. She is so advanced with her dementia, a blind man with the cane.” For me, that was very, very upsetting and bad. We were trapped in this Situation and literally didn’t want to have the changes in the own mother is true. In addition, my mother was always a little more special. In the case of an outsider, I would have probably already x-times said: Something is wrong here. That is why it is so important to do this story. Because I would like to say to the people out there: Hey, as soon as it provides such an approach, let yourself get professional help, go in groups and get advise and take really quick help from the outside.
Her mother lives in a nursing home. You may not like the decision for a home hard?
Of course, one thinks first of all: You push someone, your own mother. And so it feels only once in a while. The key point was that we have all felt that the care was at home at a certain time. We were not able to do justice to. It has taken a long time, until we have admitted that a nursing home is the best solution. In retrospect, this was absolutely the right decision, because she feels comfortable there and arrived.
How often do you visit there?
Just as often, how I did it, before she lived in a nursing home. Sometimes I do it only twice a month, sometimes three Times a week. So, like all people, have a family of my own, and in the midst of life. The beauty of it is: visit you every day from my stepfather for 30 years at your side.
They say: The family has changed as a result of the disease totally. How exactly?
In the phases, as it was a question of whether we let mommy examine, or later, if you would be more at home in a nursing home might be better, there was, of course, different positions. We have scary a lot of discussion. But this is quite normal, quite typical. All were overwhelmed. Today we have found ourselves as a family again.
What was the most Surprising in terms of the disease?
Of course, one wishes that the mother gets such a diagnosis, but I have the feeling that the dementia has more welded together. Certainly the horrors of dementia is great, but we also have a lot of fun, there are a lot of funny moments.
In the case of dementia also hereditary factors play a role. There is a hereditary risk in the family?
In the Form of my mother, the probability to inherit this dementia, at 50 percent. So the odds were actually relatively high, that you get it. I take part in but, as I said, a large-scale study of the University of Bonn, let me investigate and all of my genetic tests have shown that I am not affected. This will not protect me, of course, before that, to get another Form of dementia when I’m old.
Why have you decided to talk about it?
Because it is important for me is to make the people of courage: This is a disease, a widespread disease. In 20 years, probably, every third German will have a dementia patient in the family or in the vicinity. This is a topic that is hushed. All have the same degree of Overstrain, but nobody talks about it.
What would you advise other Affected?
Please do not hesitate, when it comes to seek professional help! This is my core message.
Send note: “The dog is a professional on-the-go”, Saturday, 15.12., 19 PM on Vox