Iwas about twenty when I stopped by my grandparents' place and found my grandma in the front yard after a fall.

She had gone to the letterbox and tripped, lying in the front yard for hours. Bruised hip, bruised pride - and like so many Australian families, one incident began my family's interaction with the aged care system.

Everything's travelling fine - until something small goes wrong, and suddenly, it all changes.

Parkinson's disease was diminishing my grandma's body - but my grandpa, who had served in Papua New Guinea during the war, was the opposite. His memory was starting to fray, but he was strong and mobile.

When one partner has the body and the other the mind, the reality is that our loved ones can lose their independence overnight. We tried respite; he kept wandering. Staff

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