Iben Hjejle: Father's illness came as a shock

The popular actress Iben Hjejle tells in a column, as she has written for Alzheimerforeningens magazine 'Life with dementia', to her father two years ago was diagnosed with Lewy-Body dementia, there is a slowly progressive brain disorder.

Previously a 49-year-old Iben Hjejle told that she is next of kin to the one with dementia, but now she says that it is her 79-year-old father Christian is talking about.

'It came as a shock. I had for several years well noticed that he had been more careful and sometimes had a hard time keeping focus, which was unusual for him. But I had never imagined that it could be dementia', writes Iben Hjejle in the column.

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Here she says that she found it difficult to admit his father's illness.

'I might not want to realize that there was something wrong, and beat it over with, that he probably just drank too much red wine. But the situation escalated with the passage of time, and it ended up with a design an examination programme at The Hukommelsesklinik and subsequently a demensdiagnose.'

Iben Hjejles grandmother also had dementia. At the time, was Iben Hjejle young teen, and she remembers back to how the family grabbed it by humor and love.

it made It easier. Both as caregivers and for the affected. The strategy she uses is also facing the danger, she says in the column. It means that she have to let go of all the laborious and practical, and try to get him in a meeting in the virkelighedsniveau, he is.

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Iben Hjejles experience is that the best gift one can give, is to let go.

'So I let go. Not all at once. For you have to do it gradually a little at a time. For each conversation you need to say: 'Ok, I understand. It is how you look at it. Fine'. And it is terrible, it feels like a small loss, you likewise ask every day, have to give a bit more drop on the man you love', she writes, and explains that she is trying to find the positive things.

'And even dementia in all ways is a curse, so it can actually also help to learn one to stop and look at it, that is important - try to increase the here super effective life and sit down and look at a ray of sunshine or a bird and say 'It's damn also really very good, it is here'. And it is healthy for all people'.

Extra Magazine trying to get a comment from Iben Hjejle.