A POLICE and crime commissioner has spoken out about his own experience of dealing with his father’s struggle with dementia.

Ron Hogg, PCC for Durham, is supporting Dementia Action Week, which starts today, and has spoken of his own experience of the disease.

A former steel worker, Archie Hogg died in 2011, aged 87, after being diagnosed with dementia in 2003.

Mr Hogg, 66, said: “It was hard for me to come to terms with my dad’s decline. He went from being someone who had worked hard all his life – a very capable individual – to not being able to do the most basic of things like tie his own shoelaces.

“You could see his comprehension diminishing all the time to the point where he just closed down.

“Dementia is an awful disease. Bit by bit you lose the person you knew and I found that really difficult to deal with.

“Dad’s condition worsened considerably after he’d had a stroke and I have to admit there were times when I thought it might have been better if he had died at that time.

“There is a selfish element to that because you think to yourself, this is not my father. This is not the guy who brought me up and knocked me into shape.”

At the time, Mr Hogg was juggling a high-pressure job as deputy chief constable of Cleveland Police while trying to maintain meaningful contact with his parents in Northamptonshire.

He said: “My mother Jean had cancer at the same time that my father was struggling with dementia, so it was not a good time at all.

“My mother was losing her sight and was in a wheelchair, so that was difficult, but with dad it was worse. Within minutes of me arriving to see him he’d be asking where I’d been and when was I going home?

“It was awful to deal with because he would just ask the same questions over and over again.”

“And if I asked him a question I’d rarely get a sensible answer.

“There might be the occasional flash of lucidity – where you could perhaps manage a brief conversation – but such moments never lasted long.”

Dementia Action Week starts today, when Mr Hogg will be visiting the Dementia Community Roadshow, in Durham’s Market Place, from 10am-4pm.

Amanda Short, from the Alzheimer’s Society, said: “Our aim during Dementia Action Week is to kick-start a movement that brings about community change so that people living with dementia feel safe, valued and included in society.”

“We are committed to ensuring the rights of people affected by dementia are recognised, and until the day we find a cure, we will be here to support them.”