But do they get the help and support they deserve? During Carers' Week Jemma Walton found out.

MOST parents would hang their head in shame if their teenage lad booted a policeman where it hurts.

Likewise, most parents would be beside themselves if their son lost his temper in a doctor's surgery and started throttling a bystander.

But Marie Hughes is not most parents. She is mum to, and carer of, her 15-year-old son Josh, who has autism and dyspraxia, and she knows that aggression is part of his condition.

So when her son loses his temper in the doctor's, and the police are called, she simply deals with it as best she can.

In the past, Josh has attacked her, punched her in the head and kicked her, and split her lip.

And he is also a danger to himself. Once they were sipping coffee in Costa on Bridge Street, when suddenly he was tearing off down Priestgate. She caught up with him minutes before he ran onto the two-lane traffic roaring at 40mph down Bourges Boulevard.

There isn't a minute in the day when she doesn't think about him, and she is resigned to the fact that she will be responsible for caring for him for a good while to come, if not forever.

"His autism means he can get very violent and he has trouble reading tone of voice and expressions, and communication in general," she said.

"He goes to Heltwate Special School and spends one weekend in five in respite care, but my life has to revolve around him."

Her day is a gruelling one by anyone's standards.

"I'm up at 5.30am to help him bathe and get dressed and make his breakfast and watch him eating," she said. "A lot of the time he eats with his fingers and needs to be watched.

"And then he is picked up to go to school in a taxi, and on Tuesdays and Thursdays I help out at the city's Carers' Centre.

"He's home at 3.15pm and it's all hands on deck. He's anxious and needs to be calmed down and changed, and then I have to start making his tea from scratch.

"A lot of foods can set him off, things like processed cheese, chocolate, sugar, cakes – even oranges, because of the anti-psychotic medication he's on. By 6.30pm he's tired and wants to go to bed.

"He puts his hand against his face, pretending it's a pillow, and that's how I know he's tired. And then, by 9pm, I am too, and I go to bed. And that's my day."

Single mum Marie (44), of Barrowfield, off Eye Road, has considered asking for Josh to live permanently in a residential setting, but knows she will have a long, draining struggle against the powers-that-be on her hands.

Instead, she lives from day to day, and gets a lot of support from the people she volunteers alongside at PCVS Carers' Centre.

"I go there for a break," she said. "I need that break. Because I think the Government takes the mick. They know that you're not going to leave your loved ones – I didn't give birth to him to give him up – and so they know they've got you."