Last week, a caregiver told me something that she considered so horrible that she could only say it in a whisper. She told me about her husband and his Alzheimer’s journey. He had just moved from a memory care community to a nursing home. She wasn’t pleased with the care he was receiving. Their kids lived across the country and had stopped visiting. He spent … Continue reading Stuff You Only Whisper

If you have dementia or are a care partner to someone with dementia, people tell you a lot of things about dementia. Perhaps some of those people are educated about dementia. Maybe some of their input is helpful. If so, wonderful. More likely than not, many of these people are not educated about dementia. I’m sure that a lot of their input is not helpful. … Continue reading Bad Advice and Unhelpful People

Here’s what I learned recently. Pickleball is important. If you don’t know what pickleball is, it’s a combination of tennis, ping-pong, and badminton. You can probably get a better explanation if you google it. But it our mid-sized Midwestern town, it’s a thing. It’s a big thing. Perhaps it’s a big thing in your area as well. It’s played at our local rec centers, and … Continue reading Pickleball is Important

Today we have a special guest blogger. It’s Drew Dotson, who was a visiting scholar at the University of Northern Iowa this spring. While in town, she had the opportunity to do the dementia simulation house. Here is her review! Dementia Simulation House: “It was good!” “How was it?” people asked after learning I’d visited the University of Northern Iowa’s Dementia Simulation House.  I enthusiastically … Continue reading Review: The Dementia Simulation House

I spoke to a woman recently who lost her husband to frontotemporal dementia. She shared something with me that many people don’t recognize as related to dementia…weight GAIN. Yes, gain. Weight loss is quite common as well, so when I talk about dementia and weight, I usually say dementia can be related to a change in weight. Frontotemporal dementia is a type of dementia that … Continue reading Dementia and Weight Gain (Yes, Gain)

I write a lot about the challenges of dementia caregivers…their high rates of clinical depression and anxiety…their loneliness…their daily stressors. This post doesn’t change anything I’ve written in the past, but I do want to acknowledge something. Some caregivers are doing okay. Some caregivers are happy. Some caregivers are enjoying life and thriving. That doesn’t mean every day is great. But is every day really … Continue reading The Happy Caregiver

A blessing of having a few days of bed rest due to back pain is that I got caught up on Grey’s Anatomy and This is Us. Both of these shows have used Alzheimer’s as major story lines. Today I am focusing on This is Us, which has portrayed Alzheimer’s in a more realistic way than Grey’s Anatomy (and the movie The Notebook…don’t get my … Continue reading This is Us

Q: What is the biggest risk factor for dementia? A: Age. The chance of a person having dementia increases as they age. But it is NOT just old people who have dementia. It’s people in their 50’s and early 60’s. I even know a few who were diagnosed in their 40’s, and one who was diagnosed at age 38. Are there specific challenges to having … Continue reading This isn’t just about old people

I was going to write a blog post tonight, but it’s past 9:00pm and I’m still at the Dementia Simulation House…. I talk a lot about mental energy, and I just don’t have any left tonight. Instead, I am leaving you with this video about our house. Credit goes to Paul Pease, a senior at the University of Northern Iowa, who produced this video for … Continue reading An Inside Look at the Dementia Simulation House

I don’t read much fiction. Correction: I don’t read fiction at all. I like non-fiction. I like to read about real stuff because what happens in real life is, to me, often stranger and more fascinating than fiction. I am not picking on fiction. I know many people read fiction as an escape from the real world, and I completely respect that. It’s just never … Continue reading Dementia is weirder than fiction