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[Music] with its tropical climate natural beauty and traditional culture thailand has long been a popular tourist destination but now there's another reason drawing people here a quiet revolution in caring for the elderly the care system for elderly people in europe is not working anymore and it's going to be a big big problem in the west horror stories of abuse and neglect in care homes not to mention rising costs are driving families to look for alternatives forcing many to make difficult decisions i got even letters from school friends of my wife telling me i'm an idiot to bring her to dispose her here and turn your body 101 east follows those who send their loved ones across the world for their final years [Music] it's been a year since walter glor saw his wife maya he and his daughter tanya have flown more than 13 hours from their home in switzerland to see her but it's a bittersweet reunion maya is not sure who they are [Music] maya was just 50 and running a michelin-starred restaurant with her husband when she was diagnosed with alzheimer's nine years ago it was devastating for the family she knew what what's coming and she was crying every morning you know and one morning i remember i said to my um you know i promise you one thing i will always do the best for you always not for me not for anybody else just for you and she was kissing me and saying thank you so much was she scared were you scared i was scared she was scared maya's home is now a villa at the bon kamlon chai aged care center in chiang mai thailand her family brought her here two years ago when it became apparent she needed 24-hour care this is going on for 10 years and is slowly taking her apart from me slowly slowly this is like you know saying goodbye in in slow motion and that is the hard thing about that the disease now for us is worse in the beginning it was bad for her very bad for her because she realized what happened but now it's for us it's for us it's it's very hard walter says bringing maya here was the best option for her but back in switzerland not everyone agrees yeah well i got even letters from school friends of of my wife telling me i'm an idiot to bring her to dispose her here to dispose her yeah well it's uh it's not nice but these people don't know anything they have never even looked for half an hour in the internet what really happened with alzheimer's patients and of course a lot of people talk and he brings her to thailand yeah you know get rid of her or whatever the main reason was where is the best place for maya and we all agreed this is this place here we couldn't find anything better so i think she deserves to be the best place in the world [Music] is also a long way from home where you came from me yeah i have some questions from england or from america america oh i've seen the ice cream in the america yeah [Music] unsure of where she is and unable to remember where she's been mary is also destined to live out her days in northern thailand cared for 24 hours a day seven days a week today she's visiting a local butterfly park it's beautiful but then there's nothing you can do is there oh i know i've got to get out of here i want to go home mary suffers from dementia her family brought her here from the uk almost three years ago we were worried about the gas fire um you know we had to give keys to all the neighbors in case she got locked out of the house which happened a few times did she yeah yeah she got locked out she she would you should go out in the evenings but you know in a 90 a couple of times and you know luckily the neighbors found her and brought her back into the away house son michael and daughter-in-law emily looked at care homes in the uk we did take her to a care home in surrey to have a look it was an extremely nice high-end facility but it was a facility it was like a hospital ward the rooms were very very nice but they were small and there was a hospital beds tonight yeah and people have got the hospital signs up the exit signs you know you have that feeling the smell of of detergent and institution and a couple of guests asked us if we could help them leave [Music] they feared mary wouldn't survive in such a sterile environment then they heard about a care resort in thailand what was mary's reaction when you brought up the subject of perhaps going to thailand of course as soon as we mentioned it to her you know her face and we showed her the pictures and the results and she she um it's interesting she was excited mary might now be far away but michael makes sure she's not forgotten so this is the picture of the day that granny arrived in england wow from the middle east on the boat born in palestine the daughter of a british soldier mary later met and married an army officer herself she lived all over the world cyprus malaya singapore hong kong so she really had this international upbringing she did yeah you know i think that helped shape her you know she needed to be someone that could uh go into a new school into a new community and sort of integrate very quickly um you know she's used to living in different parts of the world today i'm visiting mary at her new home care resort chiang mai her villa is next to one of the two swimming pools why don't you sit down no you don't you dare but go on go and get your bloody well done be careful mary well come on come and sit on he's only little he's only a little it's very small a photo book her family sent is filled with pages of a life that is lost to her who's that that's this that is him and that's my dad oh look at that sweet face she has four dedicated carers who work rotating shifts around the clock ensuring she is never left alone i heard that you were a good dancer your son told me how i got his son i can't remember now to remember the carers are they they're remarkable i mean they yeah they're like her daughters and i think she gets more comfort and pleasure from their presence than ours i think we stress her out she knows she's supposed to remember things about us but she doesn't and so that really stresses her so it's a 45 minute drive there and one hour drive back peter brown is a british hotelier who bought this holiday resort 11 years ago it was a pond before he transformed part of it into a dementia care facility after realizing how badly his mother was looked after back home in the uk i went to visit my mother in an english care resort and within 15 minutes i'd called the ambulance and she went to hospital for three months what happened she got cancer of the throat but she was dying in a care resort and nobody was doing anything about it i'm not having to go at that one place it's the same philosophy everywhere else not enough care staff after six o'clock at night no care staff you're on your own if you have trouble ever six clock at night i passionately believe that care helps people have a better life it's not about how long you're going to live it's how much you can enjoy the years you've got left and if you take a disease like dementia you've probably got at least eight years to live so it becomes quite important that those eight years are quite enjoyable not locked in a room treated like a child very good okay this one open your hands out to the side so i wanted to do things a little bit differently i couldn't do what i want to do in the uk because of the cost of staffing so titan has the advantage of being cheaper it also has an advantage of the asian respect for the elderly it makes a big difference okay shall we get up let's go six weeks after moving into the same resort it's already making a huge difference for dusko doder a former journalist for the washington post he reported from moscow in the 1980s this summit is in in many ways a great boost to mr gorbachev no matter what it was a time of huge historical upheaval it's also where he met his wife and fellow journalist louise he's a lot older than i am and he was the best journalist in moscow and he helped me on a lot of stories introduced me to a lot of people it was very exciting because he opened whole new worlds for me helping me understand soviet union and that was sort of how we fell in love i remember watching the baby the first time that's right they were looking very um worried about how you were going to do it right look how tiny he is look at you probably after a life abroad the couple settled near washington dc where they wrote books together but everything changed about two years ago when dusko suffered a massive heart attack and brain hemorrhage i was working i was i was doing a remote job as an editor i finally had to give that up and the thing about caregiving is it happens very slowly he lost abilities very slowly so by the end of last year i don't think i quite realized how much i was doing for him but my son came up and took care of him for a few days and he just said to me mom dad should have been in assisted living months ago you can't do this and i was by that point i was bathing him dressing him when you looked at care homes assisted living in the states what did you find i couldn't see dusk go in there and he did not want to go in there he would not want to be sitting in a sitting room with other people staring at a television screen which a lot of people do and not you know simply because they don't you know they're not able to do anything else and just a light bulb went off my head i thought i'm gonna google assisted living overseas which i did and i found this resort sounded too good to be true but i thought well i'll go and take a look the minute i walked in here i i fell in love with it it was just so beautiful more importantly she says moving to thailand meant they could stay together something that would have been impossible in the u.s we brought our dog and i'm slowly starting to make friends here so i can see that there's going to be a sort of a life where i can be with him a lot i'm working on this book right now so i spend much of my day writing but always when he comes to lunch or dinner i can join him and i feel it's the right compromise for me because i don't you know yes it's it's my life is still circumscribed by being here with him but i i have a lot of freedom to go out and do things and make new friends and to be a person to be a wife again [Music] [Applause] across town back at maya's care home it's also party night it's less a resort and more a community for dementia patients and their families [Music] [Applause] remember jenny and now uh we have her niece are visiting us again martin woodley opened this center in 2003. his father had just taken his own life because he couldn't cope with his wife's dementia there were few care options for his mother in their native switzerland so martin brought her here to chiang mai he found full-time carers for her and realized he could help others too this is an experiment this is something new but it's the way maybe we have to find new models of care because the care system for elderly people is not working anymore and it's going to be a big big problem [Music] he now has 14 patients with round-the-clock carers living in 10 different villas [Music] residents meet up for meals and outings are arranged for those who are able to go today they are visiting an elephant park you see elephants [Music] tell me about the caregivers that you've brought in here they are empathic to people with dementia disease they love them they respect them and i mean this is this wonderful thing in thailand is the way they approach they go closer to elderly people but still with respect respect is something eileen chubb says is often missing in nursing homes in the west the former care worker in the uk now runs a non-profit that investigates abuse in homes across the country i don't blame people like i say for looking abroad i don't blame them but i do think it's a damning indictment on this country's care system [Music] is this a private home department yeah and it's a big big company with big profits for decades her hidden camera has captured countless cases of unsanitary conditions and abuse in both public and private care homes in the uk people were left with bed sores to the bone so when you walked onto the unit you could smell dead flesh people were screaming in agony so people were pushed over um hit spat out they had their wedding rings stolen we had one case where a lady had maggots and a wound maggots you know people just been ignored and people's just sitting sobbing and crying in a corner but the family didn't see thailand may provide better care options than these uk homes but eileen still has reservations number one qualification to be a carer you have to have communication and if you haven't got that you know even if you got compassion you can't translate it you can't translate it to the person and show them how you can make them feel safe and believe me it's the best job in the whole world but i'm sorry if you if you can't communicate with somebody then you can't care for them but back in thailand walter disagrees what do you think about her carers these young women who look after her she has three beautiful women taking care of her they speak all english which is nice i like to talk to them also they can explain to me how maya is doing i think perfect team she has a really good team here [Music] [Music] lara grew up in a small mountain village about three hours north of chiang mai [Music] she makes the trip back here to see her own parents once or twice a year her husband two sons and many gifts in tow let's don't put yoga okay laura's parents are still fit and healthy and living on their own but she's already thinking about the future looking after your elders is a vital responsibility in thai culture but even here things are changing she says she won't rely on her sons who will take care of you when but for now lars concern is for maya's present and future at a memorial back in chiang mai she joins other guests and carers to mourn residents she knew and cared for who have passed away [Music] [Music] so kate this is where granny lived it's beautiful isn't it the beautiful old house it measures so much character so much history can you imagine moving here when she was eight years old every family that sends a loved one to a care home has already grieved the loss long before the decision is made i think everyone so many people are struggling with this you know so so we're certainly not the first and certainly not the last that are trying to figure this out it's a personal journey that you have to go through and you have to think through what's right um for uh for the individual and this was right for for mum i'm tired toddy you're pretty happy here huh yeah is that hard to come to terms with the fact that he's probably not going to leave that this is no we've we've discussed it and that's he wouldn't want to go back um so now he's so this is this is it and he's happy he's happy about that yeah he's comfortable yes yes this is for me this is for me this is for me i open it for you maya because you don't like ice cream so i eat okay and i will always take care of maya whatever happened this is for me this is this is normal she would do the same thing for me and yeah she's a unbelievable person and you should have met her 20 years ago she was really you know the best person i've ever met [Music] [Music]