Dementia Support & Resources

Jolene Brackey has a vision: that we will soon look beyond the challenges of Alzheimer's disease to focus more of our energies on creating moments of joy. When people have short-term memory loss, their lives are made up of moments. We are not able to create perfectly wonderful days for people with dementia or Alzheimer's, but we can create perfectly wonderful moments, moments that put a smile on their faces and a twinkle in their eyes. Five minutes later, they will not remember what we did or said, but the feeling we left them with will linger. Creating Moments of Joy is filled with more practical advice sprinkled with hope, encouragement, stories, and generous helpings of humor. Brackey reveals that our greatest teacher is having cared for and loved someone with Alzheimer's and that often what we have most to learn about is ourselves.

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Loving Someone Who Has Dementia is a new kind of caregiving book. It's not about the usual techniques, but about how to manage on-going stress and grief. The book is for caregivers, family members, friends, neighbors as well as educators and professionals—anyone touched by the epidemic of dementia. Dr. Boss helps caregivers find hope in "ambiguous loss"—having a loved one both here and not here, physically present but psychologically absent.

• Outlines seven guidelines to stay resilient while caring for someone who has dementia

• Discusses the meaning of relationships with individuals who are cognitively impaired and no longer as they used to be

• Offers approaches to understand and cope with the emotional strain of care-giving

Boss's book builds on research and clinical experience, yet the material is presented as a conversation. She shows you a way to embrace rather than resist the ambiguity in your relationship with someone who has dementia.

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When Myrna Marofsky was told her husband had early-stage Alzheimer's, she made a commitment to disregard the "tragedy talk" that typically surrounds this diagnosis. Instead, for five years she found ways to keep bad news from becoming a bad life.

In To the Last Dance, Myrna speaks to those who are too often forgotten, calling for more care to be given to the caretakers―partners experiencing the emotional heartache of loss while trying not to lose themselves.

This candid memoir is not another to-do list or dementia caregiver's guide. Instead, it is a real-life love story, demonstrating a way of living that:

• redefines caregiving,

• dismisses the "tragedy talk,"

• maintains identity and relationships, and

• finds possibilities and hope in the mist of adversity.

Being on the other side of a progressive disease can leave you feeling alone, without a compass, and struggling to maintain a mindset of possibilities. Myrna introduces two questions you can ask yourself to help find moments―or even years―of meaningful life through dementia:

How do you want to live each day?
How do you want to feel in the end?

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Still Alice is a compelling debut novel about a 50-year-old woman's sudden descent into early onset Alzheimer's disease, written by first-time author Lisa Genova, who holds a Ph. D in neuroscience from Harvard University.

Alice Howland, happily married with three grown children and a house on the Cape, is a celebrated Harvard professor at the height of her career when she notices a forgetfulness creeping into her life. As confusion starts to cloud her thinking and her memory begins to fail her, she receives a devastating diagnosis: early onset Alzheimer's disease. Fiercely independent, Alice struggles to maintain her lifestyle and live in the moment, even as her sense of self is being stripped away. In turns heartbreaking, inspiring and terrifying, Still Alice captures in remarkable detail what's it's like to literally lose your mind...

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