Jan Kasteel and her late husband Frank were best friends.
In 2017, after nearly 52 years of marriage, Mr Kasteel received a diagnosis of a language variant of Alzheimer’s.
“As the disease progressed there would be a step down … and those steps got bigger,” she said. “And the last couple of years … I could only understand about 10 per cent of what he was saying. It became quite lonely. We were partners all our lives.”
Just two days before her husband died, the 72-year-old connected with the Royal Hobart Hospital’s palliative care team to receive advice on how to best support her dying husband. She wishes she had accessed assistance earlier.
“I would have been able to have someone to talk through what was happening for me, instead of being involved so much in the moment of caring,” she said.