We've ranked the best dementia books using expert recommendations, sales data, and millions of reader ratings. At Shortform, we know books. Our book guides are the best in the world. Learn why.
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Still Alice
Lisa Genova
5.0
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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The 36-Hour Day: A Family Guide to Caring for People Who Have Alzheimer Disease, Related Dementias, and Memory Loss
Nancy L. Mace MA
4.9
The most trusted guide for caring for persons with Alzheimer's disease, memory loss, and dementia disorders-now revised and updated with practical and legal advice and compassionate guidance for families and caregivers.
When someone in your family suffers from Alzheimer's disease or other related memory loss diseases, both you and your loved one face immense challenges. For over thirty years, this book has been the trusted bible for families affected by dementia disorders. Now completely revised and updated, this guide features the latest information on the causes of dementia, managing the early stages of dementia, the prevention of dementia, and finding appropriate living arrangements for the person who has dementia when home care is no longer an option. You'll learn:
The basic facts about dementia How to deal with problems arising in daily care-meals, exercise, personal hygiene, and safety How to cope with an impaired person's false ideas, suspicion, anger, and other mood problems How to get outside help from support groups, friends, and agencies Financial and legal issues you must address. Comprehensive and compassionate, The 36-Hour Day is the only guide you need to help your family through this difficult time.
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3
The 36-Hour Day (6th Edition): A Family Guide to Caring for People who have Alzheimer's Disease, Related Dementia, and Memory Loss
Nancy L. Mace
4.5
Through five editions, The 36-Hour Day has been the "bible" for families who love and care for people with Alzheimer disease. This book offers much-needed information and support to millions of people throughout the world. Whether a person has Alzheimer disease, vascular dementia, or another form of dementia, he or she will struggle with independent living and most likely face medical, behavioral, mood, and legal and financial problems. This essential resource will help family members and caregivers address all of these challenges and simultaneously cope with their own emotions and needs.
Thoroughly revised and updated, this sixth edition features easy-to-see take-away messages about every aspect of caregiving. Informed by new research into the causes of dementia and the search for therapies to prevent or cure dementia, this edition also includes new and expanded information on
- what we know about how to prevent dementia and the diseases that cause dementia;- new high-tech and low-tech devices to make life simpler and safer for people who have dementia;- behavioral and neuropsychiatric symptoms;- strategies for delaying symptoms in a person who has dementia;- changes in Medicare and other health care insurance laws;- changes in banking practices with regard to competency;- palliative care, hospice care, durable power of attorney, and guardianship;- Continuing Care at Home programs;- Parkinson's related dementia;- dementia due to traumatic brain injury- choosing and moving a person to residential care; and- support groups for caregivers, friends, and family members
The central idea underlying the book--that much can be done to improve the lives of people with dementia and of those caring for them--remains the same. Still very much the book readers turn to, this fresh edition of The 36-Hour Day is the definitive guide for those who continue to love someone even after he or she has been changed by dementia.
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4
Elizabeth Is Missing
Emma Healey
4.5
In this darkly riveting debut novel—a sophisticated psychological mystery that is also a heartbreakingly honest meditation on memory, identity, and aging—an elderly woman descending into dementia embarks on a desperate quest to find the best friend she believes has disappeared, and her search for the truth will go back decades and have shattering consequences.
Maud, an aging grandmother, is slowly losing her memory—and her grip on everyday life. Yet she refuses to forget her best friend Elizabeth, who she is convinced is missing and in terrible danger.
But no one will listen to Maud—not her frustrated daughter, Helen, not her caretakers, not the police, and especially not Elizabeth's mercurial son, Peter. Armed with handwritten notes she leaves for herself and an overwhelming feeling that Elizabeth needs her help, Maud resolves to discover the truth and save her beloved friend.
This singular obsession forms a cornerstone of Maud's rapidly dissolving present. But the clues she discovers seem only to lead her deeper into her past, to another unsolved disappearance: her sister, Sukey, who vanished shortly after World War II.
As vivid memories of a tragedy that occurred more than fifty years ago come flooding back, Maud discovers new momentum in her search for her friend. Could the mystery of Sukey's disappearance hold the key to finding Elizabeth?
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5
And Every Morning the Way Home Gets Longer and Longer
Fredrik Backman
4.5
A little book with a big heart!
From the New York Times bestselling author of A Man Called Ove, My Grandmother Asked Me to Tell You She’s Sorry, and Britt-Marie Was Here comes an exquisitely moving portrait of an elderly man’s struggle to hold on to his most precious memories, and his family’s efforts to care for him even as they must find a way to let go.
With all the same charm of his bestselling full-length novels, here Fredrik Backman once again reveals his unrivaled understanding of human nature and deep compassion for people in difficult circumstances. This is a tiny gem with a message you’ll treasure for a lifetime.
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Loving Someone Who Has Dementia: How to Find Hope While Coping with Stress and Grief
Pauline Boss
4.5
Research-based advice for people who care for someone with dementia Nearly half of U.S. citizens over the age of 85 are suffering from some kind of dementia and require care. 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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Making Rounds with Oscar: The Extraordinary Gift of an Ordinary Cat
David Dosa
4.5
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER
A remarkable cat. A special gift. A life-changing journey. They thought he was just a cat. When Oscar arrived at the Steere House Nursing and Rehabilitation Center in Rhode Island he was a cute little guy with attitude. He loved to stretch out in a puddle of sunlight and chase his tail until he was dizzy. Occasionally he consented to a scratch behind the ears, but only when it suited him. In other words, he was a typical cat. Or so it seemed. It wasn't long before Oscar had created something of a stir. Apparently, this ordinary cat possesses an extraordinary gift: he knows instinctively when the end of life is near. Oscar is a welcome distraction for the residents of Steere House, many of whom are living with Alzheimer's. But he never spends much time with them--until they are in their last hours. Then, as if this were his job, Oscar strides purposely into a patient's room, curls up on the bed, and begins his vigil. Oscar provides comfort and companionship when people need him most. And his presence lets caregivers and loved ones know that it's time to say good-bye. Oscar's gift is a tender mercy. He teaches by example: embracing moments of life that so many of us shy away from. Making Rounds with Oscar is the story of an unusual cat, the patients he serves, their caregivers, and of one doctor who learned how to listen. Heartfelt, inspiring, and full of humor and pathos, this book allows readers to take a walk into a world rarely seen from the outside, a world we often misunderstand.
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8
Turn of Mind
Alice LaPlante
4.4
A stunning first novel, both literary and thriller, about a retired surgeon with dementia who clings to bits of reality through anger, frustration, shame and unspeakable loss.
Turn of Mind, a literary page-turner about a retired orthopedic surgeon suffering from dementia and accused of killing her best friend, was a New York Times hardcover bestseller and named a Best Book of the Year by Newsday, Chicago Tribune, The Washington Post, The Guardian, and Kirkus Reviews.
When Dr. Jennifer White's best friend, Amanda, is found dead with four of her fingers surgically removed, Dr. White is the prime suspect. But she herself doesn't know whether she did it. Told in White's own voice, fractured and eloquent, a picture emerges of the surprisingly intimate, complex alliance between these life-long friends—two proud, forceful women who were at times each other's most formidable adversary. As the investigation into the murder deepens and White's relationships with her live-in caretaker and two grown children intensify, a chilling question lingers: is White's shattered memory preventing her from revealing the truth or helping her to hide it?
A startling portrait of a disintegrating mind clinging to bits of reality through anger, frustration, shame, and unspeakable loss, Turn of Mind is a remarkable debut that examines the deception and frailty of memory and how it defines our very existence.
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9
Can't We Talk about Something More Pleasant?
Roz Chast
4.4
#1 New York Times Bestseller
2014 NATIONAL BOOK AWARD FINALIST
In her first memoir, Roz Chast brings her signature wit to the topic of aging parents. Spanning the last several years of their lives and told through four-color cartoons, family photos, and documents, and a narrative as rife with laughs as it is with tears, Chast's memoir is both comfort and comic relief for anyone experiencing the life-altering loss of elderly parents.
When it came to her elderly mother and father, Roz held to the practices of denial, avoidance, and distraction. But when Elizabeth Chast climbed a ladder to locate an old souvenir from the "crazy closet"—with predictable results—the tools that had served Roz well through her parents' seventies, eighties, and into their early nineties could no longer be deployed.
While the particulars are Chast-ian in their idiosyncrasies—an anxious father who had relied heavily on his wife for stability as he slipped into dementia and a former assistant principal mother whose overbearing personality had sidelined Roz for decades—the themes are universal: adult children accepting a parental role; aging and unstable parents leaving a family home for an institution; dealing with uncomfortable physical intimacies; managing logistics; and hiring strangers to provide the most personal care.
An amazing portrait of two lives at their end and an only child coping as best she can, Can't We Talk about Something More Pleasant will show the full range of Roz Chast's talent as cartoonist and storyteller.
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10
The End of Alzheimer's: The First Program to Prevent and Reverse Cognitive Decline
Dale Bredesen
4.4
In this paradigm shifting book, Dale Bredesen, MD, offers real hope to anyone looking to prevent and even reverse Alzheimer's Disease and cognitive decline. Revealing that AD is not one condition, as it is currently treated, but three, The End of Alzheimer's outlines 36 metabolic factors (micronutrients, hormone levels, sleep) that can trigger "downsizing" in the brain. The protocol shows us how to rebalance these factors using lifestyle modifications like taking B12, eliminating gluten, or improving oral hygiene.
The results are impressive. Of the first ten patients on the protocol, nine displayed significant improvement with 3-6 months; since then the protocol has yielded similar results with hundreds more. Now, The End of Alzheimer's brings new hope to a broad audience of patients, caregivers, physicians, and treatment centers with a fascinating look inside the science and a complete step-by-step plan that fundamentally changes how we treat and even think about AD.
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A Man Called Ove
Fredrik Backman
4.4
A grumpy yet loveable man finds his solitary world turned on its head when a boisterous young family moves in next door.
Meet Ove. He’s a curmudgeon—the kind of man who points at people he dislikes as if they were burglars caught outside his bedroom window. He has staunch principles, strict routines, and a short fuse. People call him “the bitter neighbor from hell.” But must Ove be bitter just because he doesn’t walk around with a smile plastered to his face all the time?
Behind the cranky exterior there is a story and a sadness. So when one November morning a chatty young couple with two chatty young daughters move in next door and accidentally flatten Ove’s mailbox, it is the lead-in to a comical and heartwarming tale of unkempt cats, unexpected friendship, and the ancient art of backing up a U-Haul. All of which will change one cranky old man and a local residents’ association to their very foundations.
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Recommended by Abid Zaidi.
Abid Zaidi
Day 6 : #30Days of posting cover of books I love (1 book a day for 30 days). No expectations, no reviews, just the covers. Inspired by @rekha_bhardwaj #MyFavouriteBooks https://t.co/rl0foOp6hK [source]
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The Last Days of Ptolemy Grey
Walter Mosley
4.4
A masterful, moving novel about age, memory, and family from one of the true literary icons of our time.
Ptolemy Grey is ninety-one years old and has been all but forgotten-by his family, his friends, even himself-as he sinks into a lonely dementia. His grand-nephew, Ptolemy's only connection to the outside world, was recently killed in a drive-by shooting, and Ptolemy is too suspicious of anyone else to allow them into his life. until he meets Robyn, his niece's seventeen-year-old lodger and the only one willing to take care of an old man at his grandnephew's funeral.
But Robyn will not tolerate Ptolemy's hermitlike existence. She challenges him to interact more with the world around him, and he grasps more firmly onto his disappearing consciousness. However, this new activity pushes Ptolemy into the fold of a doctor touting an experimental drug that guarantees Ptolemy won't live to see age ninety- two but that he'll spend his last days in feverish vigor and clarity. With his mind clear, what Ptolemy finds-in his own past, in his own apartment, and in the circumstances surrounding his grand-nephew's death-is shocking enough to spur an old man to action, and to ensure a legacy that no one will forget.
In The Last Days of Ptolemy Grey, Mosley captures the compromised state of his protagonist's mind with profound sensitivity and insight, and creates an unforgettable pair of characters at the center of a novel that is sure to become a true contemporary classic.
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Where the Light Gets in: Losing My Mother Only to Find Her Again
Kimberly Williams-Paisley and Michael J. Fox
4.4
"The relationship between a mother and daughter is one of the most complicated and meaningful there is. Kimberly Williams-Paisley writes about her own with grace, truth, and beauty as she shares her journey back to her mother in the wake of a devastating illness." --Brooke Shields
Many know Kimberly Williams-Paisley as the bride in the popular Steve Martin remakes of the Father of the Bride movies, the calculating Peggy Kenter on Nashville, or the wife of country music artist, Brad Paisley. But behind the scenes, Kim was dealing with a tragic secret: her mother, Linda, was suffering from a rare form of dementia that slowly crippled her ability to talk, write and eventually recognize people in her own family.
Where the Light Gets In tells the full story of Linda's illness--called primary progressive aphasia--from her early-onset diagnosis at the age of 62 through the present day. Kim draws a candid picture of the ways her family reacted for better and worse, and how she, her father and two siblings educated themselves, tried to let go of shame and secrecy, made mistakes, and found unexpected humor and grace in the midst of suffering.
Ultimately the bonds of family were strengthened, and Kim learned ways to love and accept the woman her mother became. With a moving foreword by actor and advocate Michael J. Fox, Where the Light Gets In is a heartwarming tribute to the often fragile yet unbreakable relationships we have with our mothers.
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14
Hour of the Bees
Lindsay Eaga
4.3
Things are only impossible if you stop to think about them. . . .
While her friends are spending their summers having pool parties and sleepovers, twelve-year-old Carolina — Carol — is spending hers in the middle of the New Mexico desert, helping her parents move the grandfather she’s never met into a home for people with dementia. At first, Carol avoids prickly Grandpa Serge. But as the summer wears on and the heat bears down, Carol finds herself drawn to him, fascinated by the crazy stories he tells her about a healing tree, a green-glass lake, and the bees that will bring back the rain and end a hundred years of drought. As the thin line between magic and reality starts to blur, Carol must decide for herself what is possible — and what it means to be true to her roots. Readers who dream that there’s something more out there will be enchanted by this captivating novel of family, renewal, and discovering the wonder of the world.
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15
The Lewis Man (The Lewis Trilogy, #2)
Peter May
4.3
A body is recovered from a peat bog on the Isle of Lewis. The male Caucasian corpse is initially believed by its finders to be over 2000 years old, until they spot the Elvis tattoo on his right arm. The body, it transpires, is not evidence of an ancient ritual killing, but of a murder committed during the latter half of the 20th century.
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16
Half a Chance
Cynthia Lord
4.3
A moving new middle-grade novel from the Newbery Honor author of Rules.
When Lucy's family moves to an old house on a lake, Lucy tries to see her new home through her camera's lens, as her father has taught her -- he's a famous photographer, away on a shoot. Will her photos ever meet his high standards? When she discovers that he's judging a photo contest, Lucy decides to enter anonymously. She wants to find out if her eye for photography is really special -- or only good enough.
As she seeks out subjects for her photos, Lucy gets to know Nate, the boy next door. But slowly the camera reveals what Nate doesn't want to see: his grandmother's memory is slipping away, and with it much of what he cherishes about his summers on the lake. This summer, Nate will learn about the power of art to show truth. And Lucy will learn how beauty can change lives . . . including her own.
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17
The Caregiver's Guide to Dementia: Practical Advice for Caring for Yourself and Your Loved One
Gail Weatherill RN CAEd
4.3
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18
The Brain that Changes Itself: Stories of Personal Triumph from the Frontiers of Brain Science
An astonishing new science called neuroplasticity is overthrowing the centuries-old notion that the human brain is immutable. Psychiatrist and psychoanalyst, Norman Doidge, M.D., traveled the country to meet both the brilliant scientists championing neuroplasticity and the people whose lives they’ve transformed - people whose mental limitations or brain damage were seen as unalterable. We see a woman born with half a brain that rewired itself to work as a whole, blind people who learn to see, learning disorders cured, IQs raised, aging brains rejuvenated, stroke patients learning to speak, children with cerebral palsy learning to move with more grace, depression and anxiety disorders successfully treated, and lifelong character traits changed. Using these marvelous stories to probe mysteries of the body, emotion, love, sex, culture, and education, Dr. Doidge has written an immensely moving, inspiring book that will permanently alter the way we look at our brains, human nature, and human potential.
For me it was exciting to read this book because while my research shows a growth mindset is really good for you, this book shows that a growth mindset also has a strong basis in modern neuroscience. It illustrates, though fascinating case histories and descriptions of recent research, the amazing power of the brain to change and even to reorganise itself with practice and experience. [source]
Bogdana Butnar
I don't have favourite books. I equate a favourite something with wanting to do it over and over again and I've never wanted to read a book too many times. I have favourite authors and I have books that changed me in significant ways because they moved me or taught me something or changed my view of the world. So, here's some of those books... [source]
I think the book that I really, really enjoy was, "The Brain That Changes Itself." It's all about neuroplasticity, you'd really love that book. [source]
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19
The Remember Balloons
Jessie Oliveros, Dana Wulfekotte
4.3
James’s Grandpa has the best balloons because he has the best memories. He has balloons showing Dad when he was young and Grandma when they were married. Grandpa has balloons about camping and Aunt Nelle’s poor cow. Grandpa also has a silver balloon filled with the memory of a fishing trip he and James took together.
But when Grandpa’s balloons begin to float away, James is heartbroken. No matter how hard he runs, James can’t catch them. One day, Grandpa lets go of the silver balloon—and he doesn’t even notice!
Grandpa no longer has balloons of his own. But James has many more than before. It’s up to him to share those balloons, one by one.
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20
Learning to Speak Alzheimer's: A Groundbreaking Approach for Everyone Dealing with the Disease
Joanne Koenig Coste
4.3
More than four million Americans suffer from Alzheimer’s, and as many as twenty million have close relatives or friends with the disease. Revolutionizing the way we perceive and live with Alzheimer’s, Joanne Koenig Coste offers a practical approach to the emotional well-being of both patients and caregivers that emphasizes relating to patients in their own reality. Her accessible and comprehensive method, which she calls habilitation, works to enhance communication between carepartners and patients and has proven successful with thousands of people living with dementia.
Learning to Speak Alzheimer’s also offers hundreds of practical tips, including how to -Cope with the diagnosis and adjust to the disease’s progression -Help the patient talk about the illness -Face the issue of driving -Make meals and bath times as pleasant as possible -Adjust room design for the patient’s comfort -Deal with wandering, paranoia, and aggression
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21
Grandpa's Great Escape
David Walliams
4.3
Grandpa lives in a Maximum Security Twighlight Zone, and his Grandson attempts to set him free. Jack’s Grandpa… wears his slippers to the supermarket serves up tinned tongue for dinner and often doesn’t remember Jack’s name But he can still take to the skies in a speeding Spitfire and save the day… An exquisite portrait of the bond between a small boy and his beloved Grandpa – this book takes readers on an incredible journey with Spitfires over London and Great Escapes through the city in a high octane adventure full of comedy and heart. Illustrated by the award-winning Tony Ross.
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22
Creating Moments of Joy Along the Alzheimer's Journey: A Guide for Families and Caregivers, Fifth Edition, Revised and Expanded
Jolene Brackey
4.3
The beloved best seller has been revised and expanded for the fifth edition. 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 that we left them with will linger. The new edition of Creating Moments of Joy is filled with more practical advice sprinkled with hope, encouragement, new stories, and generous helpings of humor. In this volume, 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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Creating Moments of Joy for the Person with Alzheimer's or Dementia: A Journal for Caregivers
Jolene Brackey
4.3
Jolene Brackey has a vision. A vision that will soon look beyond the challenges of Alzheimer's disease and focus more of our energy on creating moments of joy. When a person has short-term memory loss, his life is made up of moments. But if you think about it, our memory is made up of moments, too. We are not able to create a perfectly wonderful day with someone who has dementia, but it is absolutely attainable to create a perfectly wonderful moment; a moment that puts a smile on their face, a twinkle in their eye, or triggers a memory. Five minutes later, they won't remember what you did or said, but the feeling you left them with will linger.
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24
The Dementia Handbook: How to Provide Dementia Care at Home
Judy Cornish
4.3
Providing dementia care is profoundly stressful for families and caregivers. People with dementia or Alzheimer's experience emotional distress, which leads to behavioral complications and the need for institutional care. However, if families and caregivers are able to identify the emotional needs caused by dementia and understand which skills are lost and which remain, they can lower the behavioral complications and their own stress.
As the founder of the Dementia & Alzheimer's Wellbeing Network(R) (DAWN), Judy Cornish approaches dementia care with clear and empathetic methods that not only improve the lives of the individuals with dementia but also of those caring for them.
Dementia and Alzheimer's are very personal and individual experiences-they vary from person to person. However, Cornish has identified a pattern in the abilities and disabilities of people living with dementia. Based on her findings, Cornish was able to develop methods for caregivers to ease emotional distress, which can quickly and safely resolve behavioral complications.
Though people with dementia lose a sense of self, they are still the same person you always loved. Judy Cornish understands this. The Dementia Handbook: How to Provide Dementia Care at Home is the supportive guide you've been looking for as you walk alongside your loved one on this difficult-but potentially rewarding-new path.
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25
Eat to Beat Disease: The New Science of How Your Body Can Heal Itself
William W Li MD
4.3
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER Is your diet feeding or defeating disease?
Forget everything you think you know about your body and food, and discover the new science of how the body heals itself. Learn how to identify the strategies and the dosages for using food to transform your resilience and health in EAT TO BEAT DISEASE.
We have radically underestimated our body's power to transform and restore our health. Pioneering physician scientist, Dr. William Li, empowers readers by showing them the evidence behind over 200 health-boosting foods that can starve cancer, reduce your risk of dementia, and beat dozens of avoidable diseases. EAT TO BEAT DISEASE isn't about what foods to avoid, but rather is a life-changing guide to the hundreds of healing foods to add to your meals that support the body's defense systems, including:
Plums Cinnamon Jasmine tea Red wine and beer Black Beans San Marzano tomatoes Olive oil Pacific oysters Cheeses like Jarlsberg, Camembert and cheddar Sourdough bread
The book's plan shows you how to integrate the foods you already love into any diet or health plan to activate your body's health defense systems-Angiogenesis, Regeneration, Microbiome, DNA Protection, and Immunity-to fight cancer, diabetes, cardiovascular, neurodegenerative, and autoimmune diseases, and other debilitating conditions.
Both informative and practical, EAT TO BEAT DISEASE explains the science of healing and prevention, the strategies for using food to actively transform health, and points the science of well-being and disease prevention in an exhilarating new direction.
In this week's Roundup, you will learn about: -The brand new team of #coaches trained by yours truly -A great new book on how to use #diet to beat #disease -All my recent article & podcasts -And much more... Click the link to learn more: https://t.co/mSyF6P0pEn [source]
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26
Leaving Tinkertown
Tanya Ward Goodman
4.2
When Tanya Ward Goodman came home to New Mexico to visit her dad at the end of 1996, he was fifty-five years old and just beginning to show symptoms of the Alzheimer's disease that would kill him six years later. Early onset dementia is a shock and a challenge to every family, but the Wards were not an ordinary family. Ross Ward was an eccentric artist and collector whose unique museum, Tinkertown, brought visitors from all over the world to the Sandia Mountains outside Albuquerque. In this book Tanya tells Ross's story and her own, sharing the tragedy and the unexpected comedy of caring for this funny, stubborn man who remained a talented artist even as he changed before his family's eyes.
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27
The Forgetting: Understanding Alzheimer's: A Biography Of A Disease
David Shenk
4.2
Winner of the 2002 BMA Popular Medicine Book Prize: This is a haunting literary and scientific examination of Alzheimer’s disease and the race to find a cure.
‘A truly remarkable book – the definitive work on Alzheimer’s, both in social and medical terms, “The Forgetting” is incisive, humane, never ponderous, full of dry humour and brilliantly written with quiet, unpretentious authority. As a layman with personal experience of “caring” for an Alzheimer’s sufferer I am well aware of the stages of the disease and its prognosis and ending. Shenk is excellent on all these, and in his reflections on memory and the individual, and the individual’s response to the progress of the disease. I can’t imagine a book on Alzheimer’s being better researched and understood, or presented with greater sympathy.’ John Bayley
In 1906 Alois Alzheimer dissected and examined the cerebral cortex of Auguste D’s brain and became the first scientist in medical history to link a specific brain pathology to behavioural changes. The disease named after him, turns otherwise active and healthy people into living ghosts. It is a rare condition for those in their 40s and 50s but 10% of the 65+ population suffers from it and 50% of the 85+. It is longevity’s revenge and as the baby boom generation drifts into its elderly years the number of Alzheimer’s victims is expected to quadruple, making it the fastest-growing disease in developed countries.
As Adam Phillips writes in his foreword ‘This remarkable book will radically change our notions of looking after people and our assumptions about independence. Out of fear of mortality we have idealised health and youth and competence. “The Forgetting” reminds us among many other things that there is more to life than that.’
Shenk’s history of Alzheimer’s is both poignant and scientific, grounded by the fundamental belief that memory forms the basis of our selves, our souls, and the meaning in our lives.
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Recommended by Samantha Harvey.
Samantha Harvey
A very lucid and well-written portrait of Alzheimer’s disease. It gives a sort of biography and history of the disease, using medical and anecdotal sources and case histories. [source]
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28
In Pursuit of Memory: The Fight Against Alzheimer's
Joseph Jebelli
4.2
Alzheimer's is the great global epidemic of our time, affecting millions worldwide -- there are more than 5 million people diagnosed in the US alone. And as our population ages, scientists are working against the clock to find a cure.
Neuroscientist Joseph Jebelli is among them. His beloved grandfather had Alzheimer's and now he's written the book he needed then -- a very human history of this frightening disease. But In Pursuit of Memory is also a thrilling scientific detective story that takes you behind the headlines. Jebelli's quest takes us from nineteenth-century Germany and post-war England, to the jungles of Papua New Guinea and the technological proving grounds of Japan; through America, India, China, Iceland, Sweden, and Colombia. Its heroes are scientists from around the world -- many of whom he's worked with -- and the brave patients and families who have changed the way that researchers think about the disease.
This compelling insider's account shows vividly why Jebelli feels so hopeful about a cure, but also why our best defense in the meantime is to understand the disease. In Pursuit of Memory is a clever, moving, eye-opening guide to the threat one in three of us faces now.
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29
Musicophilia: Tales of Music and the Brain
Oliver Sacks
4.2
With the same trademark compassion and erudition he brought to The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat, Oliver Sacks explores the place music occupies in the brain and how it affects the human condition. In Musicophilia, he shows us a variety of what he calls “musical misalignments.” Among them: a man struck by lightning who suddenly desires to become a pianist at the age of forty-two; an entire group of children with Williams syndrome, who are hypermusical from birth; people with “amusia,” to whom a symphony sounds like the clattering of pots and pans; and a man whose memory spans only seven seconds-for everything but music. Illuminating, inspiring, and utterly unforgettable, Musicophilia is Oliver Sacks’ latest masterpiece.
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Recommended by Aniela Gregorek and Justin Boreta.
Aniela Gregorek
I gained a deeper understanding of how music affects our moods and our brains. [source]
Justin Boreta
Justin Boreta said this is one of his most-recommended books. [source]
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30
Slow Dancing with a Stranger: Lost and Found in the Age of Alzheimer's
Meryl Comer
4.2
A New York Times Bestseller
Emmy-award winning broadcast journalist and leading Alzheimer’s advocate Meryl Comer’s Slow Dancing With a Stranger is a profoundly personal, unflinching account of her husband’s battle with Alzheimer’s disease that serves as a much-needed wake-up call to better understand and address a progressive and deadly affliction.
When Meryl Comer’s husband Harvey Gralnick was diagnosed with early onset Alzheimer’s disease in 1996, she watched as the man who headed hematology and oncology research at the National Institutes of Health started to misplace important documents and forget clinical details that had once been cataloged encyclopedically in his mind. With harrowing honesty, she brings readers face to face with this devastating condition and its effects on its victims and those who care for them. Detailing the daily realities and overwhelming responsibilities of caregiving, Comer sheds intensive light on this national health crisis, using her personal experiences—the mistakes and the breakthroughs—to put a face to a misunderstood disease, while revealing the facts everyone needs to know.
Pragmatic and relentless, Meryl has dedicated herself to fighting Alzheimer’s and raising public awareness. “Nothing I do is really about me; it’s all about making sure no one ends up like me,” she writes. Deeply personal and illuminating, Slow Dancing With a Stranger offers insight and guidance for navigating Alzheimer’s challenges. It is also an urgent call to action for intensive research and a warning that we must prepare for the future, instead of being controlled by a disease and a healthcare system unable to fight it.
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31
Somebody I Used to Know: A Memoir
Wendy Mitchell
4.2
Wendy Mitchell had a busy job with the British National Health Service, raised her two daughters alone, and spent her weekends running and climbing mountains. Then, slowly, a mist settled deep inside the mind she once knew so well, blurring the world around her. She didn't know it then, but dementia was starting to take hold. In 2014, at age fifty-eight, she was diagnosed with young-onset Alzheimer's.
Mitchell shares the heartrending story of her cognitive decline and how she has fought to stave it off. What lay ahead of her after the diagnosis was scary and unknowable, but Mitchell was determined and resourceful, and she vowed to outwit the disease for as long as she could.
As Mitchell learned to embrace her new life, she began to see her condition as a gift, a chance to experience the world with fresh eyes and to find her own way to make a difference. Even now, her sunny outlook persists: She devotes her time to educating doctors, caregivers, and other people living with dementia, helping to reduce the stigma surrounding this insidious disease.
Still living independently, Mitchell now uses Post-it notes and technology to remind her of her routines and has created a "memory room" where she displays photos--with labels--of her daughters, friends, and special places. It is a room where she feels calm and happy, especially on days when the mist descends.
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32
The Things We Keep
Sally Hepworth
4.2
With honesty and true understanding, Sally Hepworth pens this poignant story of one of today's nightmares: early-onset Alzheimer's.
Anna Forster, in the early stages of Alzheimer's disease at only thirty-eight years old, knows that her family is doing what they believe to be best when they take her to Rosalind House, an assisted living facility. She also knows there's just one other resident her age, Luke. What she does not expect is the love that blossoms between her and Luke even as she resists her new life at Rosalind House. As her disease steals more and more of her memory, Anna fights to hold on to what she knows, including her relationship with Luke.
When Eve Bennett is suddenly thrust into the role of single mother she finds herself putting her culinary training to use at Rosalind house. When she meets Anna and Luke she is moved by the bond the pair has forged. But when a tragic incident leads Anna's and Luke's families to separate them, Eve finds herself questioning what she is willing to risk to help them.
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33
Dancing with Rose: Finding Life in the Land of Alzheimer's
Lauren Kessler
4.2
One journalist's riveting--and surprisingly hopeful--in-the-trenches look at Alzheimer's, the disease that claimed her mother's life.
Like many loved ones of Alzheimer's sufferers, Lauren Kessler was devastated by the ravaging disease that seemed to turn her mother into another person before claiming her life altogether. To deal with the pain of her loss, and to better understand the confounding aspects of living with a disease that afflicts four and a half million people every year, Kessler enlisted as a caregiver at a facility she calls Maplewood. Life inside the facility is exhausting and humbling, a microenvironment built upon the intense relationships between two groups of marginalized people: the victims of Alzheimer's and the underpaid, overworked employees who care for them. But what surprises Kessler more than the disability and backbreaking work is the grace, humor, and unexpected humanity that are alive and well at Maplewood.
Dancing with Rose is forceful and funny, clear-eyed and compelling. An intriguing narrative about the relationships and realities of end-of-life care, it stars an endearing cast of characters who give a human face to what has always been considered a dehumanizing condition. Illuminating and beautifully written, Kessler's immersion offers a new, optimistic view on what Alzheimer's has to teach us.
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34
Chicken Soup for the Soul: Living with Alzheimer’s & Other Dementias: 101 Stories of Caregiving, Coping, and Compassion
Amy Newmark and Angela Timashenka Geiger
4.2
No one should face Alzheimer’s or dementia alone. These 101 stories will provide support, advice, and comfort for caregivers and those living with Alzheimer’s.
This collection of personal stories will support you through all the phases of your journey. You’ll read chapters on: Accepting a New Reality – How to keep the dialogue going What Does It Feel Like? – What it’s like to have Alzheimer’s Strategies and Tips for Coping – Great advice from other families Next Steps and Tough Choices – You’re not alone in big decisions Taking the Journey with Your Parent – Tips and support for a new role Younger-Onset Alzheimer’s – Support for younger families In Sickness and In Health – Keeping marriages strong and loving The Lighter Side – Laughter is the best medicine New Ways to Make Connections – Powerful music and art therapies It Takes a Village – We’re one big community The Special Bond with Grandchildren – Those special connections
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35
Just Like Jackie
Lindsey Stoddard
4.2
For as long as Robinson Hart can remember, it’s just been her and Grandpa. Robbie knows they look like an odd pair, because her blond hair and pale skin don’t match his dark complexion—but those differences don’t mean anything to her. And though she wishes Grandpa would tell her more about the rest of her family, she’s learned over the years that he doesn’t like to talk about the past.
But Grandpa’s memory is starting to get bad, and Robbie’s worried that soon he won’t remember their family—including her—at all. She’s sure that he would get better if she could stay out of trouble, but it’s hard to keep her fists to herself when bullies like Alex Carter make fun of her for not having a mom or for looking so different from Grandpa. It’s up to Robbie to learn how to deal with her anger and to keep her family together—no matter what.
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36
Before I Forget: Love, Hope, Help, and Acceptance in Our Fight Against Alzheimer's
B. Smith, Dan Gasby, et al.
4.2
“I know where I’m going. I’m still myself. I just can’t remember things as well as I once did. So on short trips, I work hard not to be confused. I’ll say to myself, What are we going to do? How long are we staying? It’s like I’m talking to my other self—the self I used to be. She tells me, This is what we need to buy—not that. I’m conscious of that other self guiding me now.”
Restaurateur, magazine publisher, celebrity chef, and nationally known lifestyle maven, B. Smith is struggling at 66 with a tag she never expected to add to that string: Alzheimer's patient. She’s not alone. Every 67 seconds someone newly develops it, and millions of lives are affected by its aftershocks.
B. and her husband, Dan, working with Vanity Fair contributing editor Michael Shnayerson, unstintingly share their unfolding story. Crafted in short chapters that interweave their narrative with practical and helpful advice, readers learn about dealing with Alzheimer's day-to-day challenges: the family realities and tensions, ways of coping, coming research that may tip the scale, as well as lessons learned along the way.
At its heart, Before I Forget is a love story: illuminating a love of family, life, and hope.
From the Hardcover edition.
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37
Inside the Dementia Epidemic: A Daughter's Memoir
Martha Stettinius
4.2
Winner of the Memoirs category of the 2013 Next Generation Indie Excellence Book Awards. Silver medal winner in the Health/Medical category of the 2013 Readers' Favorite Book Award. Finalist, 2013 Eric Hoffer Book Awards. Finalist, 2013 Indie Excellence Book Awards. Winner of an honorable mention in the category of Life Stories from the 20th Annual Writers Digest Book Awards.
The unflinching and hopeful story of one woman's journey into family caregiving, and a vivid overview of the challenges of Alzheimer's care. Winner of an Honorable Mention in the category of Life Stories from the 20th Annual Writer's Digest Book Awards.
With the passion of a committed daughter and the fervor of a tireless reporter, Martha Stettinius weaves this compelling story of caregiving for her demented mother with a broad exploration of the causes of Alzheimer's disease, means of treating it, and hopes for preventing it. She shares the lessons she's learned over seven years of caregiving at home, in assisted living, a rehabilitation center, a "memory care" facility for people living with dementia, and a nursing home--lessons not just about how to navigate the system, but how caregiving helped the author to overcome her challenging relationship with her mother, and how she's learned to nurture her mother's spirit through the most advanced stages of dementia.
One in 8 people over age 65 has Alzheimer's disease, and nearly fifty percent of those over age 85. As baby boomers age, and we all live longer, most of us will know someone with Alzheimer's disease or another dementia, or care for someone with dementia. Alzheimer's disease is the fifth-leading cause of death in the United States for those age 65 and older, but the only one in the top 10 without a means of prevention, a way to slow its progression, or a cure. In the United States, over 15 million family caregivers provide 17.4 billion hours of unpaid care to family members and friends with Alzheimer's disease and other dementias. Sixty percent of family caregivers report feeling extreme stress.
This memoir is not a lament, however; it is guide, and, the author hopes, a means to soften the blow upon all of us. In the course of the author's experience, she discovered what could have been done earlier to help her mother, and what can be done now to help us all. Ms. Stettinius's greatest gift to readers is that of optimism--that caregiving can deepen love, that dementia can be fought, and that families can be strengthened. Her book is appealing, enlightening, and inspiring.
Through its intimate scenes and skillful storytelling, Inside the Dementia Epidemic is a call to action for better dementia care, more funding for dementia research, and more support for family caregivers. In the appendices, the author shares facts she wishes she had known years ago, including how to get a diagnosis of Alzheimer's disease; what medications are approved to treat the symptoms of Alzheimer's disease; risk factors for dementia, and possible preventive measures; promising explorations in dementia research; the link between insulin resistance, diabetes, and Alzheimer's disease; the benefits of "memory consultations" and early diagnosis; and national and international movements for more dementia research and better care.
Inside the Dementia Epidemic: A Daughter's Memoir includes source notes, resources for caregivers, and an index.
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38
The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump: 27 Psychiatrists and Mental Health Experts Assess a President
Bandy X. Lee
4.2
The New York Times bestseller! More than two dozen psychiatrists and psychologists offer their consensus view that Trump's mental state presents a clear and present danger to our nation and individual well-being.
This is not normal.
Since the start of Donald Trump’s presidential run, one question has quietly but urgently permeated the observations of concerned citizens: What is wrong with him? Constrained by the American Psychiatric Association’s “Goldwater rule,” which inhibits mental health professionals from diagnosing public figures they have not personally examined, many of those qualified to answer this question have shied away from discussing the issue at all. The public has thus been left to wonder whether he is mad, bad, or both.
In THE DANGEROUS CASE OF DONALD TRUMP, twenty-seven psychiatrists, psychologists, and other mental health experts argue that, in Mr. Trump’s case, their moral and civic “duty to warn” America supersedes professional neutrality. They then explore Trump’s symptoms and potentially relevant diagnoses to find a complex, if also dangerously mad, man.
Philip Zimbardo and Rosemary Sword, for instance, explain Trump’s impulsivity in terms of “unbridled and extreme present hedonism.” Craig Malkin writes on pathological narcissism and politics as a lethal mix. Gail Sheehy, on a lack of trust that exceeds paranoia. Lance Dodes, on sociopathy. Robert Jay Lifton, on the “malignant normality” that can set in everyday life if psychiatrists do not speak up.
His madness is catching, too. From the trauma people have experienced under the Trump administration to the cult-like characteristics of his followers, he has created unprecedented mental health consequences across our nation and beyond.
It’s not all in our heads. It’s in his.
"There will not be a book published this fall more urgent, important, or controversial than The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump...profound, illuminating and discomforting" —Bill Moyers
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Recommended by Tony Schwartz.
Tony Schwartz
This is a book of essays, mostly by psychiatrists. The majority of books about Trump focus on his actions. This is a book about why he does what he does. It presents a range of interpretations about what Trump’s underlying personality disorder is, but there is consensus that he suffers from one. [source]
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39
Thoughtful Dementia Care: Understanding the Dementia Experience
Jennifer Ghent-Fuller
4.2
An easy-to-read and sensitive portrayal of the changing world of people with dementia due to Alzheimer's disease or other diseases, and those who care for them. Offers insights into emotional reactions and practical suggestions based on deep understanding of the way people with dementia view many situations. The author carefully explains the loss of various types of memory and other thinking processes. She describes how these losses affect the day to day life of people with dementia, their understanding of the world around them and their personal situations. The many portrayals of real life experiences clarify and deepen the explanations. Jennifer is a nurse who worked for many years as an educator and counsellor for people with dementia and their families, as well as others in caring roles. She addresses the emotional and grief issues in the contexts in which they arise for families living with dementia. This book is intentionally written in easily understood plain language. "Thoughtful Dementia Care" is an expansion of the free paper by the same author, "Understanding the Dementia Experience", which has been widely distributed online and received much praise over the past ten years. The shorter paper is featured on websites for carers of people with Alzheimer’s disease or a related disease, and has been downloaded by thousands of people. Here are some of their comments: “This is one of the best things that I have read on the subject of Alzheimer’s.” “I’ve only gotten to page 4 and I’ve found the answers to half a dozen situations that have been driving me crazy.” “Most books are more high-level and don’t address the moment-to moment issues that can arise. Your article cuts to the emotional and practical core of things, and for that I am grateful.” “Great article. Going to make copies of it and give them to family and friends that keep saying to me, ‘But he seems OK to me.’ One of the best articles I have read.” “I printed a copy of this article because I believe it may be the best I have read to help those who are not impaired understand our experience. I am deeply grateful to Jennifer Ghent-Fuller for writing such a wonderful piece.” “The most helpful article I have found as I attempt to understand the changes in my father’s behaviour.” “The paper examines how everyday life changes for Alzheimer’s patients and their families as the disease progresses. The paper also gives a tremendous amount of insight in to the way Alzheimer’s patients view different situations and offers suggestions about how to interact and cope.” “An excellent article that is frequently recommended.” “The touchstone for entering our loved one’s new reality and learning how to respond to confusing behaviours.” “I have had the opportunity to read many scientific and lay articles but this was one of the best I have ever read.” “This author must be someone very special. Her understanding of the disease process and her translation for caregivers in the home setting as well as in the healthcare field is so helpful.” “Very instructive reading. It is written in a lively conversational manner that very well suits the caregivers of Alzheimer Disease patients.” “A wonderful, easily understood article on dementia.” “It is with immense honor that I send you my heartfelt thank you for your wonderful and amazing paper, ‘Understanding the Dementia Experience.’ This is the single most often recommended body of work that we refer families and caregivers to. You have touched hundreds and hundreds into the thousands of caregivers and families from all over the planet.” LOCATION URL: http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_nos...
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40
The XX Brain
Lisa Mosconi PhD
4.2
"In The XX Brain, Lisa meticulously guides us in the ways we can both nourish and protect ourselves, body and mind, to ensure our brains remain resilient throughout our lives." --from the foreword by Maria Shriver
The first book to address cognitive enhancement and Alzheimer's prevention specifically in women--and to frame brain health as an essential component of Women's Health.
In this revolutionary book, Dr. Lisa Mosconi, director of the Women's Brain Initiative at Weill Cornell Medical College, provides women with the first plan to address the unique risks of the female brain.
Until now, medical research has focused on "bikini medicine," assuming that women are essentially men with breasts and tubes. Yet women are far more likely than men to suffer from anxiety, depression, migraines, brain injuries, and strokes. They are also twice as likely to end their lives suffering from Alzheimer's disease, even when their longer lifespans are taken into account. But in the past, the female brain has received astonishingly little attention and was rarely studied by medical researchers-- resulting in a wealth of misinformation about women's health.
The XX Brain confronts this crisis by revealing how the two powerful X chromosomes that distinguish women from men impact the brain first and foremost and by focusing on a key brain-protective hormone: estrogen.
Taking on all aspects of women's health, including brain fog, memory lapses, depression, stress, insomnia, hormonal imbalances, and the increased risk of dementia, Dr. Mosconi introduces cutting-edge, evidence-based approaches to protecting the female brain, including a specific diet proven to work for women, strategies to reduce stress, and useful tips for restorative sleep. She also examines the controversy about soy and hormonal replacement therapy, takes on the perils of environmental toxins, and examines the role of our microbiome. Perhaps best of all, she makes clear that it is never too late to take care of yourself.
The XX Brain is a rallying cry for women to have full access to information regarding what is going on in their brains and bodies as well as a roadmap for the path to optimal, lifelong brain health.
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41
Contented Dementia
Oliver James
4.2
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42
The Almost Sisters
Joshilyn Jackson
4.2
With empathy, grace, humor, and piercing insight, the author of Gods in Alabama pens a powerful, emotionally resonant novel of the South that confronts the truth about privilege, family, and the distinctions between perception and reality - the stories we tell ourselves about our origins and who we really are.
Superheroes have always been Leia Birch Briggs' weakness. One tequila-soaked night at a comics convention, the usually level-headed graphic novelist is swept off her barstool by a handsome and anonymous Batman.
It turns out the caped crusader has left her with more than just a nice, fuzzy memory. She's having a baby boy - an unexpected but not unhappy development in the thirty-eight year-old's life. But before Leia can break the news of her impending single-motherhood (including the fact that her baby is biracial) to her conventional, Southern family, her step-sister Rachel's marriage implodes. Worse, she learns her beloved ninety-year-old grandmother, Birchie, is losing her mind, and she's been hiding her dementia with the help of Wattie, her best friend since girlhood.
Leia returns to Alabama to put her grandmother's affairs in order, clean out the big Victorian that has been in the Birch family for generations, and tell her family that she's pregnant. Yet just when Leia thinks she's got it all under control, she learns that illness is not the only thing Birchie's been hiding. Tucked in the attic is a dangerous secret with roots that reach all the way back to the Civil War. Its exposure threatens the family's freedom and future, and it will change everything about how Leia sees herself and her sister, her son and his missing father, and the world she thinks she knows.
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43
The Alzheimer's Disease Caregiver's Handbook: What to Remember When They Forget
Dr. Sally Willard Burbank and Sue Pace Bell
4.2
When a loved one shows signs of dementia or Alzheimer's disease, you will face challenges for which you feel ill-equiped. Dozens of decisions will need to be made:
* Can Mom live by herself safely? If not, what if she refuses to leave her home?
* When do I need to take away the car keys and checkbook?
* How do I deal with her obstinate refusal to take a bath or go to the doctor?
* Should I correct her when she insists her dead sister is still alive?
* How do I handle her repetitive questions and accusations without losing my patience (or mind!)
* How do I keep her entertained?
* How do I handle her sun-downing, burst of anger, or inappropriate public comments?
* How do I keep her from wandering off and getting lost? How do I keep her safe?
The Alzheimer's Disease Caregiver's Handbook: What to Remember When They Forget provides a comprehensive look at Alzheimer's disease and other dementias and tackles all of these thorny questions with the best advice of an experience doctor and a seasoned caregiver.
Part I provides a comprehensive review of what Alzheimer's disease is, how it is diagnosed, and its expected progression.
Part II offers practical advice for the day-to-day obstacles a caregiver might face during each stage of the disease.
Part III offers suggestions for the caregiver in preventing caregiver burnout.
Part IV provides an interesting review of current Alzheimer's research and the aggresive commitment of researcher to combat this dreaded disease
The book ends with three humorous true stories about Alzheimer's patients.
The book is written by Dr. Sally Willard Burbank, an internist with over thirty years of experience with dementia patients, and Sue Pace Bell, a seasoned caregiver who nursed her mother and husband--both Alzheimer's patients--until their deaths. We have also included the collective advice from other caregivers and the staff of Abe's Garden, a premier memory care center in Nashville.
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44
Dancing with Elephants: Mindfulness Training For Those Living With Dementia, Chronic Illness or an Aging Brain
Jarem Sawatsky
4.2
Diagnosed with a disease that can't be reversed? Learn how to keep living life to the fullest.
Have you received a terminal or chronic diagnosis? Is your mind succumbing to age or illness? Can you ever find joy, peace, or fulfillment in these challenging conditions? The answer is a resounding YES.
Author Jarem Sawatsky saw the countless guides out there for those caring for the ill and healing the curable, but when he was diagnosed with Huntington's Disease he found there was nothing for those living with incurable illness. He quit his job as a professor and devoted his life to exploring the possibilities of living with chronic conditions. Now he's bringing his findings and insights to you.
In Dancing With Elephants, you'll discover:
Simple practices to bring healing to your heart and life to your new outlook Humorous (and occasionally heart-wrenching) stories of Sawatsky's own journey Multiple ways to build confidence in yourself, even when you've been shaken to the core A new perspective to cut some of the pain and renew your spirit Practical tools to face your seemingly inescapable fears, and much, much more! Based on the popular blog of the same name, Dancing With Elephants includes insightful interviews with chronic disease experts Toni Bernhard, Lucy Kalanithi, and Patch Adams. Sawatsky's landmark book provides support that only a fellow traveler down this road can offer. If you like touching stories, mindful wisdom, and a touch of irreverent humor, then you'll love Sawatsky's life-changing book.
Buy Dancing With Elephants today to discover a new way to live!
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45
Somebody Stole My Iron: A Family Memoir of Dementia
Vicki Tapia
4.2
Now a Finalist for the High Plains Book Awards 2015 "Best Woman Writer" http://ow.ly/Of7FM
This is the story of a daughter's care of her aged parents, a father diagnosed with dementia related to Parkinson's disease, and a mother diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease. It is a story written from the perspective of the caregiver. It documents the learning process of the caregiver as she struggles to cope with the difficulties of caring for her parents and watching them change into people who are not the ones she remembers and who slowly drift away in mind and then body.
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46
Alzheimer's Through the Stages: A Caregiver's Guide
Mary Moller
4.1
Caring for your loved one (and yourself) through Alzheimer's. . .
Alzheimer's books should help everyone involved through this incredibly difficult time. that's why 'Alzheimer's Through the Stages' shows you what you can do for your loved one - and yourself - every step of the way. This book's detailed descriptions of all seven stages of the disease are both helpful and comforting.
'Alzheimer's Through the Stages' includes:
• A COMPLETE GUIDE: Go beyond other Alzheimers books as you learn what's happening and what you should do during all seven stages of the disease.
• EASY-TO-USE ADVICE: Detailed guides and sample dialogues help you handle everything from doctor visits to mood swings - making this one of the most useful Alzheimers books.
• SELF-CARE FOR CAREGIVERS: Discover the importance of your own well- being and how taking care of yourself is critical to successful caregiving. Discover one of the only Alzheimer's books that lets you concentrate on what matters most caring for both your loved one and yourself.
Epic in scope, heroic in character, and masterful in prose, We Are Not Ourselves is a multigenerational portrait of the Irish American Leary family.
Born in 1941, Eileen Tumulty is raised by her Irish immigrant parents in Woodside, Queens, in an apartment where the mood swings between heartbreak and hilarity, depending on whether guests are over and how much alcohol has been consumed.
When Eileen meets Ed Leary, a scientist whose bearing is nothing like those of the men she grew up with, she thinks she's found the perfect partner to deliver her to the cosmopolitan world she longs to inhabit. They marry, and Eileen quickly discovers Ed doesn't aspire to the same, ever bigger, stakes in the American Dream.
Eileen encourages her husband to want more: a better job, better friends, a better house, but as years pass it becomes clear that his growing reluctance is part of a deeper psychological shift. An inescapable darkness enters their lives, and Eileen and Ed and their son Connell try desperately to hold together a semblance of the reality they have known, and to preserve, against long odds, an idea they have cherished of the future.
Through the Learys, novelist Matthew Thomas charts the story of the American Century, particularly the promise of domestic bliss and economic prosperity that captured hearts and minds after WWII. The result is a riveting and affecting work of art; one that reminds us that life is more than a tally of victories and defeats, that we live to love and be loved, and that we should tell each other so before the moment slips away.
Epic in scope, heroic in character, masterful in prose, We Are Not Ourselves heralds the arrival of a major new talent in contemporary fiction.
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48
The Last Ocean: A Journey through Memory and Forgetting
Nicci Gerrard
4.1
Diagnosed with dementia, Nicci Gerrard's father John continued to live life on his own terms, alongside the disease. But when an isolating hospital stay precipitated a dramatic turn for the worse, Gerrard ... recognized that it was not just the disease, but misguided protocol and harmful practice that cause pain at the end of life. Inspired by his memory to seek a better course for all who suffer with the disease and those who love them, Gerrard became a relentless campaigner.
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49
Sum It Up: 1,098 Victories, a Couple of Irrelevant Losses, and a Life in Perspective
Pat Head Summitt
4.1
Pat Summitt, the all-time winningest coach in NCAA basketball history and bestselling author of Reach for the Summitt and Raise The Roof, tells for the first time her remarkable story of victory and resilience as well as facing down her greatest challenge: early-onset Alzheimer's disease.
Pat Summitt was only 21 when she became head coach of the Tennessee Vols women's basketball team. For 38 years, she has broken records, winning more games than any NCAA team in basketball history. She has coached an undefeated season, co-captained the first women's Olympic team, was inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame, and has been named Sports Illustrated 'Sportswoman of the Year'. She owes her coaching success to her personal struggles and triumphs. She learned to be tough from her strict, demanding father. Motherhood taught her to balance that rigidity with communication and kindness. She is a role model for the many women she's coached; 74 of her players have become coaches. Pat's life took a shocking turn in 2011, when she was diagnosed with early-onset Alzheimer's disease, an irreversible brain condition that affects 5 million Americans. Despite her devastating diagnosis, she led the Vols to win their sixteenth SEC championship in March 2012. Pat continues to be a fighter, facing this new challenge the way she's faced every other--with hard work, perseverance, and a sense of humor.
From the Hardcover edition.
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50
An Absent Mind
Eric Ril
4.1
An Absent Mind, a riveting new novel from Eric Rill, author of Pinnacle of Deceit and The Innocent Traitor, is about a race against time. The ticking time bomb is Saul Reimer's sanity. His Alzheimer's is going to be the catalyst that will either bring his family together or tear it apart. Although An Absent Mind depicts Saul's arduous struggle with Alzheimer's, it is equally a story about his relationship with his loved ones and their shared journey.
Seventy-one, and a man used to controlling those around him, Saul finds himself helplessly slipping into the abyss in what he describes as his slow dance with death. As we listen in on his ramblings, humor, emotions, lucid moments, and confusion, we are also privy to the thoughts and feelings his family share with us-his wife, Monique, conflicted and depressed; caring, yet angry; his daughter, Florence, compassionate, worried about her father's health, yet proper and reserved; his son, Joey, self-centered and narcissistic, seemingly distant from his family's challenges. And Dr. Tremblay, Saul's Alzheimer's specialist, who provides the reader with facts and observations about this dreaded disease that imprisons more than 35 million people worldwide.
We know from the beginning how it has to end for Saul, because no one has ever outsmarted Alzheimer's. But how will he navigate the meandering road that will eventually destroy his health and result in his death? And how will it affect those around him as they live with strain and guilt, while at the same time being forced to face their own demons? These questions are answered expertly by the author as he explores the conflicts that rise to the surface as the family deals with Saul's dementia.
Eric Rill's novel is reminiscent of Lisa Genova's Still Alice, Nicholas Sparks The Notebook, and Alice Munro's Away From Her. Although a beautiful work of literary fiction, An Absent Mind will expose the reader to the reality of Alzheimer's.
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51
Forget Me Not
Nancy Van Laan, Stephanie Graegin
4.1
Young readers are given an emotionally powerful yet accessible introduction to what it is like having a close family member with Alzheimer’s disease in this deeply resonant story about the relationship between a girl and her grandmother.
Grandma’s whole family is concerned as they start to notice that she is becoming more and more forgetful. After they find her wandering the neighborhood, they need to make an important decision on her behalf—that the time has come for her to move out of her house and into an assisted living community where she can have the best care possible.
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52
Etta and Otto and Russell and James
Emma Hooper
4.1
I've gone. I've never seen the water, so I've gone there. I will try to remember to come back.
Etta's greatest unfulfilled wish, living in the rolling farmland of Saskatchewan, is to see the sea. And so, at the age of eighty-two she gets up very early one morning, takes a rifle, some chocolate, and her best boots, and begins walking the 2,000 miles to water.
Meanwhile her husband Otto waits patiently at home, left only with his memories. Their neighbour Russell remembers too, but differently - and he still loves Etta as much as he did more than fifty years ago, before she married Otto.
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53
A Caregiver's Guide to Lewy Body Dementia
Helen Buell Whitworth "MSBSN" and James Whitworth
4.1
Lewy Body Dementia is the second leading cause of degenerative dementia in the elderly. Sadly Lewy Body Dementia is not well-known or understood and is often confused with Alzheimer's Disease. After the death of Jim Whitworth's first wife from Lewy Body Dementia he co-founded the Lewy Body Dementia Association in 2003, with the aim of educating caregivers, family members, and friends of people living with the disease. A Caregiver's Guide to Lewy Body Dementia is a guide and resource to Lewy Body Dementia. It is written in everyday language and filled with personal examples that connect to the readers own experiences. The book provides an accurate, detailed view of the disease in easy to understand terms. The book includes quick fact and quick tip boxes that summarize facts and caregiving tips for easy reference, a comprehensive resource guide including respite care, nursing homes, and neurologists, and a glossary of terms and acronyms related to Lewy Body Dementia. A Caregiver's Guide to Lewy Body Dementia is the first book to present a thorough picture of Lewy Body Dementia in an easy-to-read format. It is the ideal resource for caregivers, family members, and friends of individuals living with the disease seeking to understand Lewy Body Dementia.
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54
The Leisure Seeker
Michael Zadooria
4.1
The unforgettable cross country journey of a runaway couple in their twilight years determined to meet the end of all roads on their own terms—a major motion picture from Sony Pictures Classics starring Helen Mirren and Donald Sutherland.
The Robinas have shared a wonderful life for more than sixty years. Now in their eighties, Ella suffers from cancer and John has Alzheimer's. Yearning for one last adventure, the self-proclaimed "down-on-their-luck geezers" kidnap themselves from the adult children and doctors who seem to run their lives and steal away from their home in suburban Detroit on a forbidden vacation of rediscovery.
With Ella as his vigilant copilot, John steers their '78 Leisure Seeker RV along the forgotten roads of Route 66 toward Disneyland in search of a past they're having a damned hard time remembering. Yet Ella is determined to prove that, when it comes to life, you can go back for seconds—even when everyone says you can't.
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55
When Reasoning No Longer Works: A Practical Guide for Caregivers Dealing with Dementia & Alzheimer's Care
Angel Smits
4.1
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56
Goodbye, Vitamin
Rachel Khong
4.1
Goodbye, Vitamin is the wry, beautifully observed story of a woman at a crossroads, as Ruth and her friends attempt to shore up her father's career; she and her mother obsess over the ambiguous health benefits - in the absence of a cure - of dried jellyfish supplements and vitamin pills; and they all try to forge a new relationship with the brilliant, childlike, irascible man her father has become.
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57
Idaho
Emily Ruskovich
4.1
One hot August day a family drives to a mountain clearing to collect birch wood. Jenny, the mother, is in charge of lopping any small limbs off the logs with a hatchet. Wade, the father, does the stacking. The two daughters, June and May, aged nine and six, drink lemonade, swat away horseflies, bicker, and sing snatches of songs as they while away the time.
But then something unimaginably shocking happens, an act so extreme it will scatter the family in every different direction.
In a story told from multiple perspectives and in razor-sharp prose, we gradually learn more about this act, and the way its violence, love and memory reverberate through the life of every character in Idaho.
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58
Newspaper Hats
Phil Cummings and Owen Swan
4.1
Grandpa remembers many things from long ago, but he has trouble remembering his graddaughter, Georgie. In this moving story, a little girl helps her grandfather reach his memories through the simple act of making hats from folded newspaper.
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59
Grain Brain: The Surprising Truth about Wheat, Carbs, and Sugar--Your Brain's Silent Killers
David Perlmutter, Kristin Loberg
4.1
From#1 New York Times bestselling author Dr. Perlmutter, the devastating truth about the effects of wheat, sugar, and carbs on the brain, and a 4-week plan to achieve optimum health.
In Grain Brain, renowned neurologist David Perlmutter, MD, blows the lid off a finding that's been buried in medical literature for far too long: carbs are destroying your brain. Even so-called healthy carbs like whole grains can cause dementia, ADHD, anxiety, chronic headaches, depression, decreased libido, and much more.
Groundbreaking and timely, Grain Brain shows that the fate of your brain is not in your genes, it's in the food you eat. Dr. Perlmutter explains what happens when your brain encounters common ingredients in fruit bowls and bread, how statins may be erasing your memory, why a diet high in "good fats" is ideal, and how to spur the growth of new brain cells at any age. And his revolutionary 4-week plan will show you how to keep your brain healthy and sharp while dramatically reducing your risk for debilitating neurological disease -- without drugs.
Featuring a blend of cutting-edge research, real-life stories of transformation, and accessible, practical advice, Grain Brain teaches you how to take control of your "smart genes," regain wellness, and enjoy lifelong health and vitality.
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60
On Pluto: Inside the Mind of Alzheimer's
Greg O'Brien, Lisa Genova
4.1
This is a book about living with Alzheimer's, not dying with it. It is a book about hope, faith, and humor--a prescription far more powerful than the conventional medication available today to fight this disease.
Alzheimer's is the sixth leading cause of death in the US--and the only one of these diseases on the rise. More than 5 million Americans have been diagnosed with Alzheimer's or a related dementia; about 35 million people worldwide.
Greg O'Brien, an award-winning investigative reporter, has been diagnosed with early-onset Alzheimer's and is one of those faceless numbers. Acting on long-term memory and skill coupled with well-developed journalistic grit, O'Brien decided to tackle the disease and his imminent decline by writing frankly about the journey. O'Brien is a master storyteller. His story is naked, wrenching, and soul searching for a generation and their loved ones about to cross the threshold of this death in slow motion. On Pluto: Inside the Mind of Alzheimer's is a trail-blazing roadmap for a generation--both a "how to" for fighting a disease, and a "how not" to give up!
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61
The Faraway Nearby
Rebecca Solnit
4.1
In this new book by the author of A Paradise Built in Hell, Rebecca Solnit explores the ways we make our lives out of stories, and how we are connected by empathy, by narrative, by imagination. In the course of unpacking some of her own stories—of her mother and her decline from memory loss, of a trip to Iceland, of an illness—Solnit revisits fairytales and entertains other stories: about arctic explorers, Che Guevara among the leper colonies, and Mary Shelley’s Dr. Frankenstein, about warmth and coldness, pain and kindness, decay and transformation, making art and making self. Woven together, these stories create a map which charts the boundaries and territories of storytelling, reframing who each of us is and how we might tell our story.
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62
Bettyville
George Hodgman
4.1
When George Hodgman leaves Manhattan for his hometown of Paris, Missouri, he finds himself—an unlikely caretaker and near-lethal cook—in a head-on collision with his aging mother, Betty, a woman of wit and will. Will George lure her into assisted living? When hell freezes over. He can’t bring himself to force her from the home both treasure—the place where his father’s voice lingers, the scene of shared jokes, skirmishes, and, behind the dusty antiques, a rarely acknowledged conflict: Betty, who speaks her mind but cannot quite reveal her heart, has never really accepted the fact that her son is gay.
As these two unforgettable characters try to bring their different worlds together, Hodgman reveals the challenges of Betty’s life and his own struggle for self-respect, moving readers from their small town—crumbling but still colorful—to the star-studded corridors of Vanity Fair. Evocative of The End of Your Life Book Club and The Tender Bar, Hodgman’s New York Times bestselling debut is both an indelible portrait of a family and an exquisitely told tale of a prodigal son’s return.
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63
Defeating Dementia: My Recovery from Alzheimer's
Francis C. McNear
4.1
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64
Finding Grace in the Face of Dementia: "experiencing Dementia--Honoring God"
John DunlopMD MD
4.1
A diagnosis of dementia in a loved one can be both frightening and frustrating. Only a biblical foundation fuels a Christian response that both honors the patient and glorifies God. Drawing on years of professional experience working with Alzheimer's patients, Dr. John Dunlop wants to transform the way we think about dementia. Rooting his vision of care in the inherent dignity that stems from the fact that all people are made in the image of God, he explains biblical principles, describes the experience of dementia, and answers common questions about the condition. With a plan for how to care for patients with compassion and respect, this book helps caregivers, family members, and anyone else affected by dementia honor God as they improve the quality of care to patients.
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65
399 Games, Puzzles Trivia Challenges Specially Designed to Keep Your Brain Young.
Nancy Linde
4.1
Based on the science that shows that people middle-aged or older who solve word games and brainteasers have a significant cognitive advantage over those who do not, 399 Games, Puzzles & Trivia Challenges is the illustrated game book specifically created to cross-train the brain. Here are 399 games to stretch, challenge, and push the reader, all of which stimulate the formation of neurons—literally, regrowing the brain.
Plus they’re not only good for you, but just plain good—these games are fun. 399 Games, Puzzles & Trivia is a lively mix of challenges, riddles, and brainteasers—all vetted by a neuroscientist who specializes in aging brains and designed to work the six key areas of cognitive function that are vulnerable in normal aging: long-term memory, working memory, executive functioning, attention to detail, multitasking, and processing speed. The games are arranged from easiest to most difficult and are labeled according to which cognitive functions they exercise so they can be mixed and matched into a custom “workout.” In just 15 minutes a day, anyone can improve his brain’s strength, flexibility, and long-term health.
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66
While I Still Can...
Rick Phelps
4.1
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67
The Betrayal of Trust (Simon Serrailler, #6)
Susan Hill
4.1
Freak weather and flash floods all over southern England. Half of Lafferton is afloat. A landslip on the Moor has closed the bypass and, as the rain slowly drains away, a shallow grave - and a skeleton - are exposed. The remains are identified as those of missing teenager, Harriet Lowther, last seen 16 years ago.
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68
The Spectrum of Hope: An Optimistic and New Approach to Alzheimer's Disease and Other Dementias
Gayatri Devi MD
4.1
Imagine finding a glimmer of good news in a diagnosis of Alzheimer’s. And imagine how that would change the outlook of the 5 million Americans who suffer from Alzheimer’s disease and other dementias, not to mention their families, loved ones, and caretakers. A neurologist who’s been specializing in dementia and memory loss for more than 20 years, Dr. Gayatri Devi rewrites the story of Alzheimer’s by defining it as a spectrum disorder—like autism, Alzheimer’s is a disease that affects different people differently. She encourages people who are worried about memory impairment to seek a diagnosis, because early treatment will enable doctors and caregivers to manage the disease more effectively through drugs and other therapies.
Told through the stories of Dr. Devi’s patients, The Spectrum of Hope is the kind of narrative medical writing that grips the reader, humanizes the science, and offers equal parts practical advice and wisdom with skillful ease. But beyond the pleasures of great reading, it’s a book that offers real hope. Here are chapters on how to maintain independence and dignity; how to fight depression, anxiety, and apathy; how to communicate effectively with a person suffering from dementia. Plus chapters on sexuality, genetics, going public with the diagnosis, even putting together a bucket list—because through her practice, Dr. Devi knows that the majority of Alzheimer’s patients continue to live and work in their communities. They babysit their grandkids, drive to the store (or own the store), serve their clients, or otherwise live fulfilling lives. That’s news that 5 million people are waiting to hear.
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69
The Corrections
Jonathan Franzen
4.0
Winner of the National Book Award for Fiction Nominated for the National Book Critics Circle Award An American Library Association Notable Book
Jonathan Franzen's third novel, The Corrections, is a great work of art and a grandly entertaining overture to our new century: a bold, comic, tragic, deeply moving family drama that stretches from the Midwest at mid-century to Wall Street and Eastern Europe in the age of greed and globalism. Franzen brings an old-time America of freight trains and civic duty, of Cub Scouts and Christmas cookies and sexual inhibitions, into brilliant collision with the modern absurdities of brain science, home surveillance, hands-off parenting, do-it-yourself mental healthcare, and the anti-gravity New Economy. With The Corrections, Franzen emerges as one of our premier interpreters of American society and the American soul.
Enid Lambert is terribly, terribly anxious. Although she would never admit it to her neighbors or her three grown children, her husband, Alfred, is losing his grip on reality. Maybe it's the medication that Alfred takes for his Parkinson's disease, or maybe it's his negative attitude, but he spends his days brooding in the basement and committing shadowy, unspeakable acts. More and more often, he doesn't seem to understand a word Enid says.
Trouble is also brewing in the lives of Enid's children. Her older son, Gary, a banker in Philadelphia, has turned cruel and materialistic and is trying to force his parents out of their old house and into a tiny apartment. The middle child, Chip, has suddenly and for no good reason quit his exciting job as a professor at D------ College and moved to New York City, where he seems to be pursuing a "transgressive" lifestyle and writing some sort of screenplay. Meanwhile the baby of the family, Denise, has escaped her disastrous marriage only to pour her youth and beauty down the drain of an affair with a married man--or so Gary hints.
Enid, who loves to have fun, can still look forward to a final family Christmas and to the ten-day Nordic Pleasurelines Luxury Fall Color Cruise that she and Alfred are about to embark on. But even these few remaining joys are threatened by her husband's growing confusion and unsteadiness. As Alfred enters his final decline, the Lamberts must face the failures, secrets, and long-buried hurts that haunt them as a family if they are to make the corrections that each desperately needs.
The Correctionsis a grandly entertaining novel for the new century —a comic, tragic masterpiece about a family breaking down in an age of easy fixes. Richly realistic, darkly hilarious and deeply humane, it confirms that Jonathan Franzen is one of our most brilliant interpreters of American society and American soul [source]
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70
Dementia: Living in the Memories of God
John Swinton
4.0
Dementia is one of the most feared diseases in Western society today. Some have even gone so far as to suggest euthanasia as a solution to the perceived indignity of memory loss and the disorientation that accompanies it.
In this book John Swinton develops a practical theology of dementia for caregivers, people with dementia, ministers, hospital chaplains, and medical practitioners as he explores two primary questions: Who am I when I've forgotten who I am? What does it mean to love God and be loved by God when I have forgotten who God is? Offering compassionate and carefully considered theological and pastoral responses to dementia and forgetfulness, Swinton's Dementia: Living in the Memories of God redefines dementia in light of the transformative counter story that is the gospel.
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71
What a Beautiful Morning
Arthur Levine, Katie Kath
4.0
Every morning is beautiful when Noah visits his Grandparents. When Grandpa and Noah wake up, they take off singing and hardly stop: walking the dog, splashing through puddles, and eating French toast with cinnamon. But one summer Grandpa seems to have forgotten how to do the things they love. Does he even know who Noah is? Grandma steps in energetically, filling in as best she can. But it is Noah who finds the way back to something he can share with Grandpa. Something musical. Something that makes the morning beautiful again. This is a story about how love helps us find even what we think is lost.
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72
A Day At The Park: Large Print Fiction for Seniors with Dementia, Alzheimer’s, a Stroke or people who enjoy simplified stories (Senior Fiction)
Jamie Stonebridge
4.0
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73
The Book Charmer (Dove Pond, #1)
Karen Hawkins
4.0
New York Times bestselling author Karen Hawkins crafts an unforgettable story about a sleepy Southern town, two fiercely independent women, and a truly magical friendship.
Sarah Dove is no ordinary bookworm. To her, books have always been more than just objects: they live, they breathe, and sometimes they even speak. When Sarah grows up to become the librarian in her quaint Southern town of Dove Pond, her gift helps place every book in the hands of the perfect reader. Recently, however, the books have been whispering about something out of the ordinary: the arrival of a displaced city girl named Grace Wheeler.
If the books are right, Grace could be the savior that Dove Pond desperately needs. The problem is, Grace wants little to do with the town or its quirky residents—Sarah chief among them. It takes a bit of urging, and the help of an especially wise book, but Grace ultimately embraces the challenge to rescue her charmed new community. In her quest, she discovers the tantalizing promise of new love, the deep strength that comes from having a true friend, and the power of finding just the right book.
“A mesmerizing fusion of the mystical and the everyday” (Susan Andersen, New York Times bestselling author), The Book Charmer is a heartwarming story about the magic of books that feels more than a little magical itself. Prepare to fall under its spell.
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74
Merci Suárez Changes Gears
Meg Medina
4.0
Thoughtful, strong-willed sixth-grader Merci Suarez navigates difficult changes with friends, family, and everyone in between in a resonant new novel from Meg Medina.
Merci Suarez knew that sixth grade would be different, but she had no idea just how different. For starters, Merci has never been like the other kids at her private school in Florida, because she and her older brother, Roli, are scholarship students. They don’t have a big house or a fancy boat, and they have to do extra community service to make up for their free tuition. So when bossy Edna Santos sets her sights on the new boy who happens to be Merci’s school-assigned Sunshine Buddy, Merci becomes the target of Edna’s jealousy. Things aren't going well at home, either: Merci’s grandfather and most trusted ally, Lolo, has been acting strangely lately — forgetting important things, falling from his bike, and getting angry over nothing. No one in her family will tell Merci what's going on, so she’s left to her own worries, while also feeling all on her own at school. In a coming-of-age tale full of humor and wisdom, award-winning author Meg Medina gets to the heart of the confusion and constant change that defines middle school — and the steadfast connection that defines family.
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75
Toffee
Sarah Crossan
4.0
The astonishing new novel from the incomparable, multi-award-winning and Laureate, Sarah Crossan.
I am not who I say I am, and Marla isn't who she thinks she is.
I am a girl trying to forget. She is a woman trying to remember.
Allison has run away from home, and with nowhere to live, finds herself hiding out in the shed of what she thinks is an abandoned house. But the house isn't empty. An elderly woman named Marla, with dementia, lives there – and she mistakes Allison for an old friend from her past called Toffee.
Allison is used to hiding who she really is, and trying to be what other people want her to be. And so, Toffee is who she becomes. After all, it means she has a place to stay. There are worse places she could be.
But as their bond grows, and Allison discovers how much Marla needs a real friend, she begins to ask herself - where is home? What is a family? And most importantly, who am I, really?
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76
Untangling Alzheimer's: The Guide for Families and Professionals
Tam Cummings PhD
4.0
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77
Tinkers
Paul Harding
4.0
An old man lies dying. Propped up in his living room and surrounded by his children and grandchildren, George Washington Crosby drifts in and out of consciousness, back to the wonder and pain of his impoverished childhood in Maine. As the clock repairer’s time winds down, his memories intertwine with those of his father, an epileptic, itinerant peddler and his grandfather, a Methodist preacher beset by madness.
At once heartbreaking and life affirming, Tinkers is an elegiac meditation on love, loss, illness, faith, and the fierce beauty of nature.
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78
The Bonesetter's Daughter
Amy Tan
4.0
Ruth Young and her widowed mother, LuLing, have always had a tumultuous relationship. Now, before she succumbs to forgetfulness, LuLing gives Ruth some of her writings, which reveal a side of LuLing that Ruth has never known. . . .
In a remote mountain village where ghosts and tradition rule, LuLing grows up in the care of her mute Precious Auntie as the family endures a curse laid upon a relative known as the bonesetter. When headstrong LuLing rejects the marriage proposal of the coffinmaker, a shocking series of events are set in motion–all of which lead back to Ruth and LuLing in modern San Francisco. The truth that Ruth learns from her mother’s past will forever change her perception of family, love, and forgiveness.
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79
Inside the O'Briens
Lisa Genova
4.0
Joe O’Brien is a forty-four-year-old police officer from the Irish Catholic neighborhood of Charlestown, Massachusetts. A devoted husband, proud father of four children in their twenties, and respected officer, Joe begins experiencing bouts of disorganized thinking, uncharacteristic temper outbursts, and strange, involuntary movements. He initially attributes these episodes to the stress of his job, but as these symptoms worsen, he agrees to see a neurologist and is handed a diagnosis that will change his and his family’s lives forever: Huntington’s Disease.
Huntington’s is a lethal neurodegenerative disease with no treatment and no cure. Each of Joe’s four children has a 50 percent chance of inheriting their father’s disease, and a simple blood test can reveal their genetic fate. While watching her potential future in her father’s escalating symptoms, twenty-one-year-old daughter Katie struggles with the questions this test imposes on her young adult life. Does she want to know? What if she’s gene positive? Can she live with the constant anxiety of not knowing?
As Joe’s symptoms worsen and he’s eventually stripped of his badge and more, Joe struggles to maintain hope and a sense of purpose, while Katie and her siblings must find the courage to either live a life “at risk” or learn their fate.
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80
What We Carry: A Memoir
Maya Shanbhag Lang
4.0
"Profoundly moving."--Will Schwalbe, author of The End of Your Life Book Club
"A gorgeous memoir about mothers, daughters, and the tenacity of the love that grows between what is said and what is left unspoken."--Mira Jacob, author of Good Talk
In caring for her aging mother and her own young daughter, writer Maya Shanbhag Lang--"a new voice of the highest caliber" (Rebecca Makkai)--confronts the legacy of family myths and how the stories shared between parents and children reverberate through generations: a deeply moving memoir about immigrants and their native-born children, the complicated love between mothers and daughters, and the discovery of strength.
How much can you judge another woman's choices? What if that woman is your mother?
Maya Shanbhag Lang grew up idolizing her brilliant mother, an accomplished physician who immigrated to the United States from India and completed her residency, all while raising her children and keeping a traditional Indian home. She had always been a source of support--until Maya became a mother herself. Then, the parent who had once been so capable and attentive turned unavailable and distant. Struggling to understand this abrupt change while raising her own young child, Maya searches for answers and soon learns that her mother is living with Alzheimer's
When Maya steps in to care for her, she comes to realize that despite their closeness, she never really knew her mother. Were her cherished stories--about life in India, about what it means to be an immigrant, about motherhood itself--even true? Affecting, raw, and poetic, What We Carry is the story of a daughter and her mother, of lies and truths, of receiving and giving care--and how we cannot grow up until we fully understand the people who raised us.
Advance praise for What We Carry
"A dazzling, courageous memoir about the weight we carry as women, daughters, and mothers--and what happens when we let go. Lang takes us deep into the heart of her relationship with her mother, a brilliant psychiatrist and Indian immigrant with long-buried secrets. After a health crisis brings mother and daughter under the same roof for the first time since childhood, Lang grapples with new information about the parent she'd idolized, and realizes it's time to tell the story of her own life. What We Carry is a love letter to everyone who has swum through turbulent water before reaching the shores of selfhood."--Chloe Benjamin, New York Times bestselling author of The Immortalists
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81
Ending Parkinson's Disease: A Prescription for Action
Ray Dorsey MD
4.0
Parkinson's Disease has reached pandemic levels. Four top researchers offers the tools to help prevent it, improve care and treatment, and end the silence associated with the disease. Neurological disorders are now the world's leading source of disability, and the fastest growing of these disorders is Parkinson disease. Between 1990 and 2015 the number of people with Parkinson's doubled to over 6 million and is projected to double again by 2040. Harmful pesticides proliferate, many people remain undiagnosed and untreated, most lack appropriate care, research funding stagnates, and the most effective treatment is now a half a century old.
It's time for widespread education about the pandemic, better and more broadly available care, support for our affected friends and family members, and change from the companies and government agencies currently abdicating their responsibilities. In Ending Parkinson's Disease, the authors-four of the top researchers and advocates in the field-offer a bold but actionable plan to Prevent, Advocate, Care, Treat (PACT) one of the great health challenges of our time. They gather the expertise of leading researchers and clinicians to tell the full story of how we got here, what it means, and what we can do about it. This is a critical guide for anyone who has or could be touched by this disease--- patients, families, healthcare providers, politicians, and activists.
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82
Easy Relaxing Puzzles: Includes Spot the Odd One Out, Mazes, Word Searches and Find the Differences
Joy Kinnest
4.0
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83
The Inheritance: A Family on the Front Lines of the Battle Against Alzheimer's Disease
Niki Kapsambelis
4.0
An inspiring race against time: The courageous, hopeful story of the one family who may hold the key to finding a cure for Alzheimer’s disease.
Every sixty-nine seconds, someone is diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease. Of the top ten killers, it is the only disease for which there is no cure or treatment. For most people, there is nothing that they can do to fight back. But one family is doing all they can.
The DeMoe family has the most devastating form of the disease that there is: early onset Alzheimer’s, an inherited genetic mutation that causes the disease in 100 percent of cases, and has a 50 percent chance of being passed onto the next generation. Of the six DeMoe children whose father had it, five have inherited the gene; the sixth, Karla, has inherited responsibility for all of them. But rather than give up in the face of such news, the DeMoes have agreed to spend their precious, abbreviated years as part of a worldwide study that could utterly change the landscape of Alzheimer’s research and offers the brightest hope for future treatments—and possibly a cure.
Drawing from several years of in-depth research with this charming and upbeat family, journalist Niki Kapsambelis tells the story of Alzheimer’s through the humanizing lens of these ordinary people made extraordinary by both their terrible circumstances and their bravery. Their tale is intertwined with the dramatic narrative history of the disease, the cutting-edge research that brings us ever closer to a possible cure, and the accounts of the extraordinary doctors spearheading these groundbreaking studies. From the oil fields of North Dakota to the jungles of Colombia, this incredible narrative redefines courage in the face of one of the most pervasive and mysterious pandemics of our time.
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84
The Tide
Clare Helen Walsh, Ashling Lindsay
4.0
A young girl loves her grandpa so much! When they spend the day at the beach, she holds his hand as they go for a walk, and they build sand castles together. But sometimes, its difficult, because Grandpa has become forgetful. Grandpa's memories are like the tide, Mommy explains. Sometimes, they're near and full of life. Other times, they're distant and quiet. The Tide is a story about families, laughter, and how we can help a loved one with dementia live well.
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85
Movie Stars Memory Lane: large print book for dementia patients
Hugh Morrison
4.0
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86
Gentleman Nine
Penelope Ward, Sebastian York, et al
4.0
From New York Times bestselling author Penelope Ward, comes a new, sexy standalone novel.
Growing up, the three of us were friends. He was the nerd. I was the playboy. She was the beauty.
Deep down, I only ever wanted her. I kept it inside because Rory and I made a pact that our friend, Amber, was off-limits.
He lied.
I went off to college, and he got the girl. Amber never knew how I felt. They were together for years—before he broke her heart.
Through it all and across the miles, she and I casually stayed in touch. When my job sent me to Boston for a three-month contract position, Amber let me stay in her spare room.
Still reeling from her breakup, she’d sworn off men. One night, I opened her computer to find the shock of my life. She’d hesitantly contacted a male escort company. Afraid to date and get her heart broken again, she was looking for sex with no strings. Every emotion imaginable ran through me: protectiveness, jealousy—curiosity. Amber had chosen Gentleman Number Nine and sent him a message. She opened up to him, confessing, among other things, her physical attraction to her friend—me. But she considered me off-limits—and she thought I was a manwhore. (Ironic, considering the circumstances.)
Eventually, she set up a date to meet Gentleman Nine at a hotel. When she showed up several nights later to meet him, she was stunned to see me standing there—with an offer I hoped she wouldn’t refuse.
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87
A Bittersweet Season: Caring for Our Aging Parents--and Ourselves
Jane Gross
4.0
Just a few of the vitally important lessons in caring for your aging parent—and yourself—from Jane Gross in A Bittersweet Season. As painful as the role reversal between parent and child may be for you, assume it is worse for your mother or father, so take care not to demean or humiliate them.
Avoid hospitals and emergency rooms, as well as multiple relocations from home to assisted living facility to nursing home, since all can cause dramatic declines in physical and cognitive well-being among the aged.
Do not accept the canard that no decent child sends a parent to a nursing home. Good nursing home care, which supports the entire family, can be vastly superior to the pretty trappings but thin staffing of assisted living or the solitude of being at home, even with round-the-clock help.
Important Facts: Every state has its own laws, eligibility standards, and licensing requirements for financial, legal, residential, and other matters that affect the elderly, including qualification for Medicare. Assume anything you understand in the state where your parents once lived no longer applies if they move.
Many doctors will not accept new Medicare patients, nor are they legally required to do so, especially significant if a parent is moving a long distance to be near family in old age.
An adult child with power of attorney can use a parent’s money for legitimate expenses and thus hasten the spend-down to Medicaid eligibility. In other words, you are doing your parent no favor—assuming he or she is likely to exhaust personal financial resources—by paying rent, stocking the refrigerator, buying clothes, or taking him or her to the hairdresser or barber.
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88
Brain Maker: The Power of Gut Microbes to Heal and Protect Your Brain for Life
David Perlmutter, Kristin Loberg
4.0
The bestselling author of Grain Brain uncovers the powerful role of gut bacteria in determining your brain's destiny.
Debilitating brain disorders are on the rise-from children diagnosed with autism and ADHD to adults developing dementia at younger ages than ever before. But a medical revolution is underway that can solve this problem: Astonishing new research is revealing that the health of your brain is, to an extraordinary degree, dictated by the state of your microbiome - the vast population of organisms that live in your body and outnumber your own cells ten to one. What's taking place in your intestines today is determining your risk for any number of brain-related conditions.
In BRAIN MAKER, Dr. Perlmutter explains the potent interplay between intestinal microbes and the brain, describing how the microbiome develops from birth and evolves based on lifestyle choices, how it can become "sick," and how nurturing gut health through a few easy strategies can alter your brain's destiny for the better. With simple dietary recommendations and a highly practical program of six steps to improving gut ecology, BRAIN MAKER opens the door to unprecedented brain health potential.
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89
The Book of Broken Hearts
Sarah Ockler
4.0
When all signs point to heartbreak, can love still be a rule of the road? A poignant and romantic novel from the author of Bittersweet and Twenty Boy Summer.
Jude has learned a lot from her older sisters, but the most important thing is this: The Vargas brothers are notorious heartbreakers. She’s seen the tears and disasters that dating a Vargas boy can cause, and she swore an oath—with candles and a contract and everything—to never have anything to do with one.
Now Jude is the only sister still living at home, and she’s spending the summer helping her ailing father restore his vintage motorcycle—which means hiring a mechanic to help out. Is it Jude’s fault he happens to be cute? And surprisingly sweet? And a Vargas?
Jude tells herself it’s strictly bike business with Emilio. Her sisters will never find out, and Jude can spot those flirty little Vargas tricks a mile away—no way would she fall for them. But Jude’s defenses are crumbling, and if history is destined to repeat itself, she’s speeding toward some serious heartbreak…unless her sisters were wrong?
Jude may have taken an oath, but she’s beginning to think that when it comes to love, some promises might be worth breaking.
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90
When I Married My Mother: A Daughter's Search for What Really Matters--and How She Found It Caring for Mama Jo
Jo Maeder
4.0
An irreverent New York City DJ braces for disaster when she moves to the Bible Belt to care for her estranged, doll-obsessed, hoarder mother. What unfolds in this best-selling memoir is a hilarious, heartbreaking love story that sees eldercare and making peace with the past in a most unexpected way. Bonus material includes an author Q&A, Mama Jo's Favorite Cookie award-winning recipe, caregiving tips, discussion questions, and links to the trailer and short film "The Doll Dilemma" by Jacob Rosdail. Suitable for age 15+
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91
Remembering the Music, Forgetting the Words: Travels with Mom in the Land of Dementia
Kate Whouley
4.0
From the author of the much-loved memoir Cottage for Sale, Must Be Moved comes an engaging and inspiring account of a daughter who must face her mother’s premature decline.
In Remembering the Music, Forgetting the Words, Kate Whouley strips away the romantic veneer of mother-daughter love to bare the toothed and tough reality of caring for a parent who is slowly losing her mind. Yet, this is not a dark or dour look at the demon of Alzheimer’s. Whouley shares the trying, the tender, and the sometimes hilarious moments in meeting the challenge also known as Mom.
As her mother, Anne, falls into forgetting, Kate remembers for her. In Anne we meet a strong-minded, accidental feminist with a weakness for unreliable men. The first woman to apply for—and win—a department-head position in her school system, Anne was an innovative educator who poured her passion into her work. House-proud too, she made certain her Hummel figurines were dusted and arranged just so. But as her memory falters, so does her housekeeping. Surrounded by stacks of dirty dishes, piles of laundry, and months of unopened mail, Anne needs Kate’s help—but she doesn’t want to relinquish her hard-won independence any more than she wants to give up smoking.
Time and time again, Kate must balance Anne’s often nonsensical demands with what she believes are the best decisions for her mother’s comfort and safety. This is familiar territory for anyone who has had to help a loved one in decline, but Kate finds new and different ways to approach her mother and her forgetting. Shuddering under the weight of accumulating bills and her mother’s frustrating, circular arguments, Kate realizes she must push past difficult family history to find compassion, empathy, and good humor.
When the memories, the names, and then the words begin to fade, it is the music that matters most to Kate’s mother. Holding hands after a concert, a flute case slung over Kate’s shoulder, and a shared joke between them, their relationship is healed—even in the face of a dreaded and deadly diagnosis. “Memory,” Kate Whouley writes, “is overrated.”
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92
Sputnik's Guide to Life on Earth
Frank Cottrell Boyce
4.0
"From master storyteller Frank Cottrell Boyce, author of the award winning The Astounding Broccoli Boy, comes a story like no other. - Sputnik's Guide to Life on Earth. Read by Peter Capaldi, the resident Doctor in BBC's Doctor Who and with an approximate running time of seven hours, this heartfelt and hilarious story can be enjoyed by all the family.
The Blythes are a big, warm, rambunctious family who live on a small farm and sometimes foster children. Now Prez has come to live with them. But, though he seems cheerful and helpful, he never says a word.
Then one day Prez answers the door to someone claiming to be his relative. This small, loud stranger carries a backpack, walks with a swagger and goes by the name of Sputnik.
As Prez dithers on the doorstep, Sputnik strolls right past him and introduces himself to everyone in the household. Prez is amazed at the response. The family pat Sputnik on the head, call him a good boy and drop food into his mouth. It seems they all think Sputnik is a dog. It's only Prez who thinks otherwise.
But Prez soon finds himself having to defend the family from the chaos and danger unleashed by Sputnik, as household items come to life - like a TV remote that fast-forwards people: 'Anyone can do it, it's just that people don't read the instructions properly'; and a toy lightsaber that entertains guests at a children's party, until one of them is nearly decapitated by it - and Prez is going to have to use his voice to explain himself.
It turns out that Sputnik is writing a guidebook to Earth called Ten Things Worth Doing on Earth, and he takes Prez on a journey to discover just those ten things. Each adventure seems to take Prez nearer to the heart of the family he is being fostered by. But they also take him closer to the day that he is due to leave them forever . . .
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93
Dementia Reconsidered: The Person Comes First
Tom Kitwood
4.0
"For some years now, Tom Kitwood's work on dementia care has stood out as the most important, innovative and creative development in a field that has for too long been neglected. This book is a landmark in dementia care; it brings together, and elaborates on, Kitwood's theory of dementia and of person-centred care in an accessible fashion, that will make this an essential source for all working and researching in the field of dementia care." Robert Woods, Professor of Clinical Psychology, University of Wales "Over the last ten years or so Tom Kitwood has made a truly remarkable contribution to our understanding of dementia, and to raising expectations of what can be achieved with empathy and skill. This lucid account of his thinking and work will communicate his approach to a yet wider audience. It is to be warmly welcomed." Mary Marshall, Director of the Dementia Services Development Centre, University of Stirling * What is the real nature of the dementing process? * What might we reasonably expect when dementia care is of very high quality? * What is required of organizations and individuals involved in dementia care? Tom Kitwood breaks new ground in this book. Many of the older ideas about dementia are subjected to critical scrutiny and reappraisal, drawing on research evidence, logical analysis and the author's own experience. The unifying theme is the personhood of men and women who have dementia - an issue that was grossly neglected for many years both in psychiatry and care practice. Each chapter provides a definitive statement on a major topic related to dementia, for example: the nature of 'organic mental impairment', the experience of dementia, the agenda for care practice, and the transformation of the culture of care. While recognizing the enormous difficulties of the present day, the book clearly demonstrates the possibility of a better life for people who have dementia, and comes to a cautiously optimistic conclusion. It will be of interest to all professionals involved in dementia care or provision, students on courses involving psychogeriatrics or social work with older people, and family carers of people with dementia. Key features: * One of the few attempts to present the whole picture. * Very readable - many real-life illustrations. * Offers a major alternative to the 'medical model' of dementia. * Tom Kitwood's work on dementia is very well known
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94
The Dementia Caregiver: A Guide to Caring for Someone with Alzheimer's Disease and Other Neurocognitive Disorders
Marc E. Agronin
4.0
Becoming a caregiver for someone with Alzheimer's disease or another neurocognitive disorder can be an unexpected, undesirable, underappreciated--and yet noble role. It is heartbreaking to watch someone lose the very cognitive capacities that once helped to define them as a person. But because of the nature of these disorders, the only way to become an effective caregiver and cope with the role's many daily challenges is to become well-informed about the disease. With the right information, resources and tips on caregiving and working with professionals, you can become your own expert at both caring for your charge and taking care of yourself.
In these pages, Marc Agronin guides readers through a better understanding of the changes their loved one may be going through, and helps them tap into the various resources available to them as they embark on an uncertain caregiving journey. Insisting that a caregiver also maintain his or her own health and well being, Agronin guides caregivers in their efforts to provide care, but to also look to themselves as recipients of care from themselves and others. Shedding light on the debilitating disorders themselves as well as their everyday realities, this book is a much-needed resource for anyone caring for another person suffering from Alzheimer's disease and other neurocognitive disorders.
--Bette Ann Moskowitz, author of Do I Know You? A Family's Journey Through Aging and Alzheimer's
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95
Grandma
Jessica Shepherd
4.0
Oscar loves Grandma, and their time together is always lots of fun. As she becomes less able to look after herself, she has to go into a care home. More and more children are encountering dementia and its effects on their families. This touching story, told in Oscar's own words, is a positive and practical tale about the experience. The factual page about dementia helps children talk about their feelings and find new ways to enjoy the changing relationship. Jessica Shepherd's sensitive first picture book has grown out of her experiences in a variety of caring roles.
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96
The Notebook (The Notebook, #1)
Katie Roiph
4.0
Set amid the austere beauty of the North Carolina coast, The Notebook begins with the story of Noah Calhoun, a rural Southerner recently returned from the Second World War. Noah is restoring a plantation home to its former glory, and he is haunted by images of the beautiful girl he met fourteen years earlier, a girl he loved like no other. Unable to find her, yet unwilling to forget the summer they spent together, Noah is content to live with only memories...until she unexpectedly returns to his town to see him once again.
Like a puzzle within a puzzle, the story of Noah and Allie is just the beginning. As it unfolds, their tale miraculously becomes something different, with much higher stakes. The result is a deeply moving portrait of love itself, the tender moments and the fundamental changes that affect us all. It is a story of miracles and emotions that will stay with you forever.
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Recommended by John Hall.
John Hall
Don't make fun of me here, but I read it at a young age that I think aided in creating a little romance in my mind which I think helped me in my relationships and has benefited my marriage. [source]
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97
The End of Alzheimer's Program: The First Protocol to Enhance Cognition and Reverse Decline at Any Age
Dale Bredesen
4.0
The New York Times Best Selling author of The End of Alzheimer's lays out a specific plan to help everyone prevent and reverse cognitive decline or simply maximize brainpower.
In The End of Alzheimer's Dale Bredesen laid out the science behind his revolutionary new program that is the first to both prevent and reverse symptoms of Alzheimer's disease. Now he lays out the detailed program he uses with his own patients. Accessible and detailed, it can be tailored to anyone's needs and will enhance cognitive ability at any age.
What we call Alzheimer's disease is actually a protective response to a wide variety of insults to the brain: inflammation, insulin resistance, toxins, infections, and inadequate levels of nutrients, hormones, and growth factors. Bredesen starts by having us figure out which of these insults we need to address and continues by laying out a personalized lifestyle plan. Focusing on the Ketoflex 12/3 Diet, which triggers ketosis and lets the brain restore itself with a minimum 12-hour fast, Dr. Bredesen drills down on restorative sleep, targeted supplementation, exercise, and brain training. He also examines the tricky question of toxic exposure and provides workarounds for many difficult problems. The takeaway is that we do not need to do the program perfectly but will see tremendous results if we can do it well enough.
With inspiring stories from patients who have reversed cognitive decline and are now thriving, this book shifts the treatment paradigm and offers a new and effective way to enhance cognition as well as unprecedented hope to sufferers of this now no longer deadly disease.
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98
Gestameld liedboek: Moedergetijden
Erwin Mortier
4.0
De moeder van Erwin Mortier lijdt aan alzheimer. Ze heeft geen wilsbeschikking gemaakt en geleidelijk wordt ze door de ziekte overmeesterd. De zoon heeft dit wrede proces vastgelegd in een literair en universeel meesterstuk dat veel verder reikt dan het ziekbed van zijn moeder. Gestameld liedboek is een rauwe en tegelijk tedere elegie over ouders en kinderen, liefhebben en verlies, over afscheid nemen en herinneren.
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99
Creative Care: A Revolutionary Approach to Dementia and Elder Care
Anne Basting
4.0
A MacArthur Genius Grant recipient pioneers a radical change in how we interact with our older loved ones, especially those suffering from dementia, as she introduces a proven drug-free method that uses the creative arts to bring light and joy to elderly lives.
Today’s elderly—especially those suffering from dementia and Alzheimer’s—are often isolated in nursing homes or segregated in senior facilities, making the final years of life feel lonely and devoid of meaning. To alleviate seniors’ sense of aloneness, Dr. Anne Basting has developed a radical approach that combines theater and improvisation methods with medically supported therapies to help them get in touch with their own creativity and become more engaged with their families and communities.
Basting understands that trying to talk with those for whom the past and present are often mixed can be frustrating for both the patient as well as caretakers and family members. But there is way to pleasurably engage with them—imagination and creativity can help bridge the communications void and bring loved ones back to one other.
Basting has developed creative techniques, rooted in twenty-five years of research, that draw on core exercises from theater—such as “Yes, And” and “Beautiful Questions.” This approach fosters storytelling and active listening, allowing patients to freely share ideas and stories without worrying about getting the details absolutely “correct.” Basting’s years of research have shown that these practices stimulate the brain and awaken the imagination to add wonder and awe to patients’ daily lives—and provide them a means of connection.
In Creative Care, Basting lays the groundwork for a widespread transformation in our approach to elderly care and uses compelling, touching stories to inspire and guide us all—family, friends, and health professionals—in new ways and satisfying ways.
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100
Braver Than You Think: Around the World on the Trip of My (Mother’s) Lifetime
Maggie Downs
4.0
At age 34, newly married and established in her career as an award-winning newspaper journalist, Maggie Downs quits her job, sells her belongings, and embarks on the solo trip of a lifetime: Her mother’s. As a child, Maggie Downs often doubted that she would ever possess the courage to visit the destinations her mother dreamed of one day seeing. “You are braver than you think,” her mother always insisted. That statement would guide her as, over the course of one year, Downs backpacked through seventeen countries―visiting all the places her mother, struck with early-onset Alzheimer’s disease, could not visit herself―encountering some of the world’s most striking locales while confronting the slow loss of her mother. Interweaving travelogue with family memories, Braver Than You Think takes the reader hiking the Inca Trail to Machu Picchu, white-water rafting on the Nile, volunteering at a monkey sanctuary in Bolivia, praying at an ashram in India, and fleeing the Arab Spring in Egypt. By embarking on an international journey, Downs learned to make every moment count―traveling around the globe and home again, losing a parent while discovering the world.
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