Malcolm Pointon (died February 2007) was a

pianist A pianist ( , ) is an individual musician who plays the piano. Since most forms of Western music can make use of the piano, pianists have a wide repertoire and a wide variety of styles to choose from, among them traditional classical music, ja ...

and lecturer from

Thriplow Thriplow () is a village in the civil parish of Thriplow and Heathfield, in Cambridgeshire, England, south of Cambridge. The village also gives its name to a former Cambridgeshire hundred. History The parish of Thriplow covers , roughly span ...

, England, and the subject of the film ''Malcolm and Barbara - A Love Story'' shown in 1999, and, more recently, of an Independent Television program entitled ''Malcolm and Barbara: Love’s Farewell'', broadcast on Wednesday, 8 August 2007.

Alzheimer's

Malcolm Pointon was diagnosed with

Alzheimer's Alzheimer's disease (AD) is a neurodegenerative disease that usually starts slowly and progressively worsens. It is the cause of 60–70% of cases of dementia. The most common early symptom is difficulty in remembering recent events. As t ...

at the age of 51. From that time up to his death, he lived in Thriplow,

Cambridgeshire Cambridgeshire (abbreviated Cambs.) is a Counties of England, county in the East of England, bordering Lincolnshire to the north, Norfolk to the north-east, Suffolk to the east, Essex and Hertfordshire to the south, and Bedfordshire and North ...

. After the diagnosis, Pointon's wife Barbara decided to allow film-maker

Paul Watson Paul Franklin Watson (born December 2, 1950) is a Canadian-American conservation and environmental movement, environmental activist, who founded the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, an anti-poaching and direct action group focused on marine c ...

to document the events on film, which took place over the course of 11 years, and she felt that if her husband could have understood, he would have said "Go for it". Mrs. Pointon had complained to the Health Service Ombudsman and prior to the report made about the case in February 2004, in September 2003 was awarded £1,000 a week by the health authority to care for her husband. In response to statements made by the Alzheimer's Society, the Ombudsman took the unusual step of mentioning her by name, stating that the case did not set a precedent. For her work campaigning for better care of those with Alzheimer's, Mrs. Pointon was included in The Queen's Birthday Honours of June 2006, and was awarded the MBE.

Controversy

The program was the subject of

controversy Controversy is a state of prolonged public dispute or debate, usually concerning a matter of conflicting opinion or point of view. The word was coined from the Latin ''controversia'', as a composite of ''controversus'' – "turned in an opposite d ...

because the film ended with the death of Mr. Pointon, which turned out to be prematurely announced, as Pointon had entered a coma from which he would never awake, although he died seven days after the filming itself. His widow, Barbara Pointon, was a well known campaigner for improvements in the care of Alzheimer's before her death in 2020 from dementia.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Pointon, Malcolm English pianists Musicians from Cambridgeshire Deaths from dementia in England Deaths from Alzheimer's disease 2007 deaths Year of birth missing