SINGAPORE: Madam Elizabeth Chong crouched on the floor outside her house, sweat rolling down her back and soaking through her T-shirt, panic rising as her vision grew hazier and she became more light-headed by the minute.

With her blood sugar levels dropping rapidly, she called for her husband, who was inside their three-room flat, to grab chocolates from the fridge or a jar of sugar that sat visibly next to a coffee machine.

But as soon as Mr Ng Chee Yat walked into the kitchen, he would walk right back out and ask her what she needed.

This repeated itself several times.

Earlier, the couple were about to leave home for a day out, but instead of locking the gate behind him, Mr Ng, 78, locked himself inside the flat.

Seconds later, the key fell to the floor and couldn't be found. And a neighbour who had a spare key wasn’t home.

“He can’t call 995 because he can’t say our address. I can write it on a note for him, but he just can’t say it,” said Mdm Chong, 51, of her husband.

Mr Ng, who has dementia, eventually found the key behind some furniture.

“It’s a funny story now," said his wife. "But it was very dangerous."

Mr Ng once led an extremely active lifestyle, going for two-hour runs with their dog and swims at the beach between golf games.

It was on the green where they met and started a relationship in 2004, before typing the knot just three years later.

“We first became friends by playing golf together, but I never expected him to be my husband. It just happened,” said Mdm Chong, smiling.

The 27-year age gap provoked initial judgement and criticism from her family members, but she never let it bother her. 

“I believe very much in destiny and getting married to him was in my destiny,” she said, as the couple looked at each other briefly before bursting out in laughter. 

Mdm Chong worked in retail before retiring in her 30s to care for a sick mother and brother with schizophrenia. 

So she was, in a sense, equipped when Mr Ng was diagnosed with a serious heart condition 11 years ago. It caused the former engineering firm manager to have five falls over the years, with the last one denting his skull after he collapsed and hit the dining table.

But Mr Ng's dementia, diagnosed in 2023, was a whole different and unexpected ball game.

It started with Mdm Chong noticing that he was struggling with the gate's padlock, with unlocking his phone and with using the TV remote.

At first, doctors didn't know if he had old age memory loss or dementia, which refers to the general loss of cognitive abilities. But further examination revealed a mix of Alzheimer's - a brain disease leading to dementia - and vascular dementia, caused by reduced blood flow to the brain.

“People with dementia do not experience the same kind of memory loss one experiences as part of normal aging," said Ms Aleene Chow, a research executive at social service agency Dementia Singapore. 

"They might ask the same question every 20 minutes, can’t do simple mental calculations, or tell if it's morning or night.”

“A DIFFERENT MOOD EVERY DAY”

With Mr Ng, the biggest challenges are meal times and water intake, said his wife.

“I used to get frustrated with him when he didn’t want to eat, but he would be confused and didn’t understand why I was angry,” said Mdm Chong. 

It's also difficult to plan activities because “he wakes up in a different mood every day” and Mdm Chong has to think of ways to coax him to leave home. 

Stepping out of the house is a minefield in itself. 

“He’s always asking me to walk in front and doesn’t want me to hold him,” said Mdm Chong, recounting how he once went missing for over an hour when they were walking through public housing blocks. 

She was just a few metres in front of him but Mr Ng somehow lost sight of her, thought she was lost, and took a random lift up a block to try and find his wife.

“I was very angry and wanted to scold him directly, but saw him perspiring," said Mdm Chong. "He must’ve been very stressed and anxious.”

Similar episodes have occurred since but Mdm Chong now knows to remain calm and reason where Mr Ng might have gone.

“I always ask him what he’d do if I drop dead from the level of stress I have, or I just go to sleep and never wake up. I hope someone will step up and take care of him,” she said, gripping his hand tightly. 

Her own social life has also changed drastically.

“I don’t talk much to my family members or friends because they judge," she said. "We used to have gatherings and they would feel uncomfortable with him around because they didn’t know what to do with him.

"You can't expect them to understand what you’re going through.” 

Despite the toll of caring for Mr Ng, Mdm Chong said, without hesitation, that he was "my husband". 

"I share my life with him. There’s no reason why I keep doing it, it’s just because of love.” 

And Mr Ng shows his appreciation in his own way.

“When I used to say ‘I love you’, he would say ‘must you say it everyday?’," she laughed.

"But he now says ‘I love you too’ or ‘thank you'.” 

FORGET ME NOT

Mdm Chong admitted to CNA that she never imagined their retirement years looking like this.

With both not working and no children of their own, financial concerns have cropped up too.

“The financial costs of caring with someone for dementia will increase when the caregiver has to make changes to their homes, medical treatment and programmes. All these costs will stack up,” said Dementia Singapore’s Ms Chow, adding that this was also a source of anxiety for caregivers.

Mdm Chong said they were using his Central Provident Fund (CPF) savings for now.

“Money needs to be saved for a rainy day, but if now’s not a rainy day, then when?”

Meanwhile, the couple stay occupied by going for activities at Dementia Singapore's social club in Tiong Bahru, twice a week.

“It’s important for them to remain socially engaged and to continue living an active lifestyle. It helps with one’s overall health and reservation of cognitive function. The key is to work on maintaining that person’s functional ability,” said Ms Chow.

CNA joined in on one of the couple's sessions - a mahjong game where Mr Ng was perhaps smiling the widest smile this reporter had seen yet.

“He’s the happiest when he is playing mahjong,” Mdm Chong said.

She's also happy for her husband to interact and socialise with other people who understand his condition.

Her caregiving stressors remain - but she also sees little point in worrying about matters which are out of her control, and wants to take it a day at a time. 

But one fear has been harder to dismiss.

“I know of (people with dementia) that have forgotten who their wife is and who their caregiver is," said Mdm Chong.

"What if he forgets me? I pray that day never comes. 

“He’s always calling me darling, so every now and then I’ll ask if he remembers who I am and what my name is,” she added. 

To which Mr Ng would simply reply: “You’re Elizabeth. You’re my wife.”