Daughter shares touching photo of her mum in final stages of dementia

A touching photo of a husband holding his wife who was diagnosed with early onset dementia has gone viral after it was tweeted by their daughter.

In 2012, Phyllis Feener was diagnosed with a subtype of dementia at just 53-years-old. Her devastated family, from Tennessee, assumed her bouts of memory loss had been caused by menopause.

On 25 April, Phyllis’ daughter Kelli Taylor shared a picture on Twitter that is as touching as it is sad.

She tweeted at the time: “My parents have been married for 34 years. My mom is in the final stages of young onset dementia (diagnosed five years ago at 53).

“My dad cares for her full-time. She doesn’t always remember his name but she knows she is safe with him.

“If that’s not true love, I don’t know what is.”

The photo highlighting the strength of her parents struck a chord with thousands of people on social media, receiving more than half-a-million likes and 115,000 retweets.

Two days later, Ms Taylor tweeted that the response was “completely unbelievable.”

Since the diagnosis, Ms Feener’s husband, 58-year-old Stan, provided immeasurable comfort for his wife by working from home so that he could give round-the-clock care.

He also set up a GoFundMe page to help fund her future care, which raised a total of $24,000.

• On 27 May Ms Feener passed away, just three days after her 58th birthday. Her daughter wrote on the Go Fund Me page: “We are heartbroken that she’s not with us anymore, but we’re also incredibly relieved that she’s no longer suffering.

“We are so grateful to everyone who has sent sweet notes, or prayed for us, or contributed financially to this campaign. I cannot express to you how much everyone’s kindness has meant. Specifically with this campaign, it has been so beneficial to my dad to have this money coming in over the last few months when he became Mom’s full time caretaker and was not able to work.”

Any donations to this campaign will now go toward after-death expenses and helping Mr Feener financially while he adjusts to life without his wife, looks for a job and gets back on his feet.

For more information or to donate go to: www.gofundme.com/phyllisdementiafund