About Judith Graham
Judith Graham (@judith_graham), is a freelance journalist based in Denver and former topic leader on aging for AHCJ. She haswritten for the New York Times, Kaiser Health News, the Washington Post, the Journal of the American Medical Association, STAT News, the Chicago Tribune, and other publications.
Last week was life-changing for Bob DeMarco, author of the Alzheimer’s Reading Room blog. It was the week that his beloved mother, Dotty – the inspiration for his blog – died.
Regular readers knew that Dotty was failing because DeMarco wrote about the end of her life as he writes about everything: with unvarnished honesty, deep insight and love.
There are others who have written well about the experience of living with someone with Alzheimer’s disease. But DeMarco did so more consistently than anyone else.
Many other people – families, physicians, other experts, even advocates – refer to those who have Alzheimer’s as being lost to the world and themselves. DeMarco never accepted this. He was sure Dotty remained with him despite entering a different “Alzheimer’s reality.”
Day after day, he endeavored to map his mother’s new “Alzheimer’s world” for readers. Last July, for instance, he wrote about how to communicate with someone who asks the same question over and over again. The key is to enter into that person’s experience, DeMarco suggested. Continue reading →