Bus travel and Posterior Cortical Atrophy

Written By Michael Andrews – living with PCA dementia – Expert by Experience

I’ve written this because I know how PCA affects me. Every time I have a fall, it seems to always be when I’m getting off a bus. Now don’t have the assumption that this is all the time, because it’s not. Normally I can get on and off the bus without a problem, but every now and then there is an issue getting off the bus.

The problem I have is judging the distance from the step of the bus to the ground. Normally I would say that with me I can do this by memory muscle? I do it by remembering roughly the distance from the step to the ground, which works when the driver does what they are supposed to and stops next to the kerb. But some drivers don’t do this.

Now don’t get me wrong, sometimes it’s not the driver’s fault. Someone may have parked a vehicle too close to the bus stop, causing the bus driver to stop away from the kerb. If it happens in daylight and not raining, I can usually manage it. And yes, I did say not raining. When it’s raining, that can cause more issues. When the ground is wet there’s a lot of mirror reflections, which means that I can’t work out where the kerb actually is, and then there’s a chance that I’ll have a fall.

Last Thursday night I caught a bus from Bradford Interchange. It was after 9.00pm and it had been raining. The driver seemed to be in a hurry, going that fast that when he had to stop at a bus stop, he finished up stopping past the stop. I wanted to get off the bus at Bracewell Ave, and rang the bell before my stop. I stayed seated until the driver came to a stop, and then realised the driver had stopped in the middle of the road. I couldn’t work out the distance from the step to the ground, and it’s dark and wet and I couldn’t see the kerb — and I fell over.

I hurt my back and ribs. Now it wasn’t bad enough to stop me from carrying on with tasks round the house and I still could have gone out the next day, but I became nervous of the bus and I never left the house for two days. But then on the third day I knew I had to try and get back on a bus. It’s that saying: if you fall off your bike you need to just get straight back on it, or you become too scared and you’ll never do it again.

So I travelled into town by bus. I was okay getting on the bus, but felt a bit nervous getting off the bus. But now I’ve done it a couple of times I feel okay now.