Might dementia tourism to lower-wage economies become a trend?

IN 2001, WHEN Martin Woodtli’s mother was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s, he was living in his native Switzerland. His father, who had a history of depression, had found himself living with a partner who no longer always knew who he was. He killed himself the next year. An only child, Mr Woodtli quit his job with a refugee-integration service, to become a full-time caregiver. He looked at care homes, but did not like them. His neighbours were sympathetic, but rather disapproving of a man in his 40s ditching his career to “waste his life” in this way. He thought of moving with his mother to Chiang Mai, a town of 1.2m in northern Thailand, where he had once worked on an AIDS project for Médecins Sans Frontières, an NGO.

He sought help from nurses through a local hospital, but then realised that his mother needed companions more than trained medical care, and for 24 hours a day. She was soon well looked after. He found a job, but it would have meant moving. He began to wonder if in fact he already had one: his experience with his mother might be the basis for a business.