Naveen Nair, Thrissur: There are currently an estimated 18 million people in the world with dementia and about five percent of the elderly in India are suffering from Alzheimer's disease.

In the film Tanmatra, Malayalam actor Mohanlal has done one of the best performances enacting an Alzhiemer patient’s role. But after all that was in screen life that is not real.

For 65-yr-old Radhkrishnan, who was once an engineer, the pain is real. Today he inhabits a mental space of his own, one in which he cannot even recognise his own family.

Along with him there are eight others in a home for Alzhiemer's patients in Trishul, which is the only centre in the country exclusively for the patients suffering from the disease.

Medical treatment cannot cure Alzhiemer’s disease. A close to 90 per cent of the brain cells die as there is an occasional spark of memory sometimes and even rare flashes of comprehension.

But for Radhakrishanan and his friends it is a daily battle to walk through the dark corridors of life from their daily meals to going to sleep.

They struggle to make sense of the hazy world around them dealing with the ghosts of memory. They need help even to walk around the center and have to be taken care of almost like newborns.

It is more about love and care than conventional medical treatment.

“We wanted to do something in that field. We at the tropical health foundation decided to give shape to an orgnaisation exclusively dedicated to take care of people with dementia,” says ARDSI, Kerala, Dr Jacob Roy.

It is hard to say what can bring them a moment of lucidity for example a game of carom, a pawn on the chessboard or the sight of a goat.

The caretakers keep looking for these very movements where somehow they can respond. As long as the medical fraternity doesn’t come up with a permanent cure for the disease, it is the care centers that will remain home away from home for the patients.