Christine Bryden was a top civil servant and single mother of three children when she was diagnosed with dementia at the age of 46. Dancing with Dementia is a vivid account of her experiences of living with dementia, exploring the effects of memory problems, loss of independence, difficulties in communication and the exhaustion of coping with simple tasks. She describes how, with the support of her husband Paul, she continues to lead an active life nevertheless, and explains how professionals and carers can help. This book is a thoughtful exploration of how dementia challenges our ideas of personal identity and of the process of self-discovery it can bring about.

Dementia and Alzheimer’s touch the lives of millions around the world, but so much is still unknown. As first-generation Canadians, we didn’t recognize the early warning signs. We didn’t know the differences between regular aging and the early stages of dementia. We’ve made mistakes but we’ve learned a lot. DANCING WITH DEMENTIA will help you: • Identify those early warning signs • Use visuals to improve communication • Choose your words wisely • Redirect and reassure • Stay calm and cope with your own emotions • Consider nursing home options • Improve caregiver self-care We’ve learned to dance the early steps of the disease with our love and laughter intact. If you are looking for help recognizing early signposts along with practical ways to cope with early Dementia and Alzheimer’s, this book is for you.

Dancing with Memories is a children's picture book about living well with dementia. Lucy lives with dementia - she wishes she didn't, but she does. S She is full of life and determination and although less competent than before, Lucy but can still do a lot. "My brain has changed", she says, "but I am still Lucy." Lucy knows her brain doesn't work like it used to, but doesn't always understand the implications. This leads to adventures and challenges. One adventure happens the day of her granddaughter's wedding. Lucy is to be picked up for the wedding by her daughter but decides to make her own way on the bus. Lucy becomes lost and confused on her way to the wedding. She is in danger of missing the wedding altogether! After a frustrating few hours, she finds her way home through the kindness and attentiveness of people in her community, including ten-year-old Reuben and his kelpie, Rejy. Lucy does make it to her granddaughter's wedding. Dancing with Memories focuses on wellbeing rather than deficit. It re-envisions what's possible by enjoying people living with dementia, more than fixating on what is lost. It is generative, not despairing; it informs and empowers. It centres on a community aware of the respectful support people living with dementia need and deserve - a dementia-friendly community, where people take time to notice, listen and act. Supported by Professor Ralph Martins' Q&A and Maggie Beer's healthy lunchboxes, Dancing with Memories provides a platform to raise awareness, alleviate fears and facilitate conversation with children around brain health. It highlights the importance of a life-long healthy diet and lifestyle, and empowers children to engage with hope and intent in the growing social challenge of dementia.

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.

A woman recounts dementia’s toll on her family and shares lessons she learned that can provide help and hope to caregivers tending to their own loved ones. Within Dancing with Lewy, readers meet Lee and Nancy. Lee was born into a large farming family just before the Great Depression. He was a World War II Veteran, self-made businessman, artist, poet, and a man who would give a stranger his last nickel. Lee’s third daughter, Nancy, is practical, organized, pragmatic, a writer, and equals her father in a passion for life. Nancy was determined to take the helm when Lee’s mind began “dancing” with Lewy body dementia even though he resolved to remain independent while his mind slipped away. Within Dancing with Lewy, readers also meet God as the one who carried the family through this storm and offered grace to the weariness of the family. This memoir is written through Nancy’s eyes while original poetry by Lee is woven throughout to provide readers a glimpse into his outlook to life. In Part I of Dancing with Lewy,Nancy revisits Lee’s young life, her own years growing up with her dad, and the toll dementia took on their family. She shares the pain of grief when her mom died of cancer and her dad became even more confused. In Part II, she shares the lessons she learned along the way and offers hope for caregivers tending to their loved one(s) who have a debilitating illness. Nancy offers practical advice for caregivers such as how to: Get legal documents in order Find community resources Choose a nursing home and partner with the staff Treat their loved one with respect and dignity

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.

For parents and children looking for a way to open a dialogue on how Alzheimer's disease can affect their loved ones.

This moment of hope for those who must accept and embrace a new version of Mom or Dad . . . shows us that while we lament what we are loving, there are endless possibilities for enjoying the moments that remain (Fawn Germer, author of Hard Won Wisdom).

This is the story of one man's unconventional route to and through dementia-the light, the dark, the humorous, the unexpected. Weaving anecdotes, personal experiences, and reflection, The Dancing Dementia Dude is a book for those with dementia, as well as their loved ones, with hopes that its humor, optimism, and first-hand accounting will ease the mystery of one of the world's most feared conditions.

Christine Bryden was 46 years old when she was diagnosed with dementia, and in this book she describes her remarkable emotional, physical and spiritual journey in the three years immediately following. Offering rare first-hand insights into how it feels to gradually lose the ability to undertake tasks most people take for granted, it is made all the more remarkable by Christine's positivity and strength, and deep sense, drawn in part from her Christian faith, that life continues to have purpose and meaning. Originally published in Australia in 1998, the book is brought up-to-date with a new Foreword, Preface and Appendix, in which Christine explains how the disease has progressed over the years, and how she is today. It also contains many previously unseen photographs of Christine and her family, from around the time of her diagnosis up to the present day. Inspirational and informative in equal measure, Who will I be when I die? will be of interest to other people with dementia and their families, as well as to dementia care professionals.