Strong Brain Blog

This week we present new articles on coping with dementia and caring for dementia sufferers. Here are two about coping:
Facing life with dementia and discovering a positive path
‘Why should I stop working just because I have dementia?’

Links to these articles have been added to Alzheimers > Coping & Caregivers > Coping Stories.

And here is one about caring:
‘Eventually I knew she was no longer safe alone’: how do we care for family with dementia?

This link has been added to Alzheimers > Coping & Caregivers > Caregivers.

Disease of most sorts has always carried a sense of shame, but dementia seems to carry an especially heavy stigma. This has lessened as more has been learned about the disease, including the fact that is indeed a disease! Moreover, this has been aided by the brave disclosures of dementia diagnoses from public figures. Here we’ve collected links to articles about a number of such figures, in no particular order.

Sandra Day O’Connor
Justice Sandra Day O’Connor announces she has been diagnosed with dementia
Sandra Day O’Connor Says She Has Dementia, Withdraws From Public Life
As she faces dementia, Sandra Day O’Connor is a pioneer again

Ted Turner
Ted Turner reveals he has Lewy body dementia
Ted Turner reveals he’s battling Lewy body dementia in exclusive interview

Gene Wilder
Gene Wilder’s widow on what it’s like to care for someone with Alzheimer’s

Glenn Campbell
Glen Campbell: His Courageous Fight with Alzheimer’s Disease (see also Review: ‘I’ll Be Me’ Is Glen Campbell’s Farewell to His Fans and Himself

Ronald Regan
Read Ronald Reagan’s Letter to the American People About His Alzheimer’s Diagnosis

Pat Summit
Fighting Alzheimer’s Disease

Charlton Heston
Charlton Heston has Alzheimer’s symptoms (also Charlton Heston’s Alzheimer’s Announcement and Goodbye)

Terry Pratchett
‘A butt of my own jokes’: Terry Pratchett on the disease that finally claimed him

Malcolm Young
AC/DC’s Malcolm Young has dementia, family says

Kathy Griffin’s Mother
Kathy Griffin reveals mother’s diagnosis
Kathy Griffin Reveals Mom Maggie Has Dementia In Heartbreaking Post

A related article:
Dementia Is Getting Some Very Public Faces

Here’s the story of an Alzheimer’s sufferer who forgot that he was married to his wife of 38 years. He proposed to her, she (smartly) accepted, and they were married again:

Husband with Alzheimer’s forgot he was married to his wife of 38 years. He proposed, and they married again.

The link is in Alzheimer’s > Coping & Caregivers > Coping Stories

Greg O’Brien was diagnosed in 2009 with early-onset Alzheimer’s. He has written a book about his experiences (On Pluto: Inside the Mind of Alzheimer’s), appeared in a short documentary film (see Learning to Live and Progress with Alzheimer’s ) and wrote the following short piece in Nautilis:
     A Look Through the Eyes of Alzheimer’s
The piece Alzheimer’s Bring Other Health Problems With It, from NPR in June of 2017, is an extended interview with Greg describing some of the difficult personality side-effects of O’Brien’s (and most sufferer’s) struggle with Alzheimer’s.

Sandy Bem was a 65 year-old Cornell psychology professor when she learned that she was suffering the onset of Alzheimer’s. This article, The Last Day of Her Life recounts the several year process of arriving at the day she ended her life with a glass of pentobarbital, with all of her family surrounding her.

In 2012, 69 year-old Geri Taylor saw the beginnings of the onset of early Alzheimer’s in herself. This piece,
Fraying at the Edges: Her Fight to Live With Alzheimer’s, follows her for the next 3 years as she finds ways to hold on to pieces of herself and to construct a new way to live.

Steve Goodwin was a gifted pianist and improvisational composer who never wrote down or recorded his compositions. Early onset Alzheimer’s began robbing him and his family of his music. This piece,
Family struggles to save pianist’s music before Alzheimer’s can steal it, describes the ensuing years and how his family and a professional musician friend of his daughter worked to save his music. The effort culminated in a packed public concert of the music.

Sandy’s Story tells the story of Sandy Halperin and the first four years of his early onset Alzheimer’s. After Alzheimer’s diagnosis, ‘there’s still a good life’ updates that story to the present.

AC/DC’s Malcolm Young has dementia, family says announced that Young was suffering from dementia. Sadly,
AC/DC co-founder and guitarist Malcolm Young dies at 64 announced that he has died.

All the links can be found in Alzheimer’s > Coping and Caregivers > Coping Stories

More stories of coping on

Alzheimers > Coping Stories

The new links are:

Everything my mom remembers: Our love and memories, her Alzheimer’s When my hippie, playful mom was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s, our family was what really changed

Slipping Away Jo Aubin has Alzheimer’s. He’s 38.

Tableware designed for Alzheimer’s patients …Eatwell, an assistive tableware set designed specially for patients with cognitive impairments like Alzheimer’s.