"UnMasking Alzheimer's: The Memories Behind the Masks" is a a collection of photographs of the thirty masks created by Alzheimer's advocate and artist, Cynthia Huling Hummel along with her reflections on the challenges and hopes of living well with an AD diagnosis.

Dementia steals memories--creative stitchery crafts can hold memories. Stolen Memories: An Alzheimer's Stole Ministry and Tallit Initiative describes the use of hand-sewn, individualized stoles and stole-style tallitot in advocacy for Alzheimer's and related dementias. These beautiful pieces of liturgical art can increase awareness, prompt discussion, begin an educational process, promote dementia-friendly faith communities, and give honor to those affected by Alzheimer's. Pastors wear them in the pulpit or as they conduct services, particularly during national days of awareness or remembrance of those affected by dementia or their caregivers and loved ones. Chaplains wear them in pastoral visits or special services for people in assisted living or memory-care units. Advocates wear them as they speak at churches, synagogues, conferences, or training sessions, or as they make visits to their representatives in Congress to lobby for increased funding for research, as well as treatment and care for persons living with dementia and their care partners. Included are simple step-by-step instructions and photos on how readers can piece and sew their own stoles and tallitot, along with many photos of clergy wearing them and their personal reflections on the stoles/tallitot and their meaning to them.

Religious faith is a powerful source of comfort and support for individuals and families facing dementia. Many faith leaders need help in adapting their ministries to address the worship/spiritual needs of this group. A product of Faith United Against Alzheimer's, this handbook by 45 different authors represents diverse faith traditions, including Christianity, Islam, Judaism, Sikhism, Buddhism and Native American. It provides practical help in developing services and creating dementia friendly faith communities. It gives an understanding of the cognitive, communicative and physical abilities of people with dementia and shows what chaplains, clergy and lay persons can do to engage them through worship. Included are several articles by persons living with dementia.

Unmasking the Mask, the spiritual battle behind mental health brings together the secular and biblical perspective of mental illness. Paul talks about the spiritual struggle, where it involves two kingdoms. You will find that Unmasking the Mask will expose the enemy behind mental illness. You will discover holistic ways that may reverse or help you manage mental health.

More than 100 medical diseases—many common ailments—are capable of masquerading as mental disorders. This book shows clinicians how to identify patients who are most likely to have an underlying physical ailment and how to direct them to a targeted medical work-up. With guidance on working with patients during the referral process and afterward, as well as on integrating medical findings into ongoing therapeutic work, clinicians will benefit from the practical advice on recognizing signs, symptoms, and patterns of medical diseases that may be underlying a psychologically presenting malady.

News of Alzheimer’s disease is constantly in the headlines. Every day we hear heart-wrenching stories of people caring for a loved one who has become a shell of their former self, of projections about rising incidence rates, and of cures that are just around the corner. However, we don't see or hear from the people who actually have the disease. In Living with Alzheimer’s, Renée L. Beard argues that the exclusively negative portrayals of Alzheimer’s are grossly inaccurate. To understand what life with memory loss is really like, Beard draws on intensive observations of nearly 100 seniors undergoing cognitive evaluation, as well as post-diagnosis interviews with individuals experiencing late-in-life forgetfulness. Since we all forget sometimes, seniors with an Alzheimer’s diagnosis ultimately need to be socialized into medicalized interpretations of their forgetfulness. In daily life, people with the disease are forced to manage stigma and the presumption of incompetence on top of the actual symptoms of their ailment. The well-meaning public, and not their dementia, becomes the major barrier to a happy life for those affected. Beard also examines how these perceptions affect treatment for Alzheimer’s. Interviews with clinicians and staff from the Alzheimer’s Association reveal that despite the best of intentions, pejorative framings of life with dementia fuel both clinical practice and advocacy efforts. These professionals perpetuate narratives about “self-loss,” “impending cures,” and the economic and emotional “burden” to families and society even if they do not personally believe them. Yet, Beard also concludes that in spite of these trends, most of the diagnosed individuals in her study achieve a graceful balance between accepting the medical label and resisting the social stigma that accompanies it. In stark contrast to the messages we receive, this book provides an unprecedented view into the ways that people with early Alzheimer’s actively and deliberately navigate their lives.

The revolutionary how-to guidebook that details ways to make it easier to provide dementia home care for people experiencing Alzheimer's or dementia. Alzheimer's home care is possible! Dementia with Dignity explains the groundbreaking new approach: the DAWN Method(R), designed so families and caregivers can provide home care. It outlines practical tools and techniques to help your loved one feel happier and more comfortable so that you can postpone the expense of long-term care. In this book you'll learn: -The basic facts about Alzheimer's and dementia, plus the skills lost and those not lost; -How to recognize and respond to the emotions caused by Alzheimer's or dementia, and avoid dementia-related behaviors; -Tools for working with an impaired person's moods and changing sense of reality; -Home care techniques for dealing with hygiene, safety, nutrition and exercise issues; -A greater understanding and appreciation of what someone with Alzheimer's or dementia is experiencing, and how your home care can increase home their emotional wellbeing. Wouldn't dementia home care be easier if you could get on the same page as your loved one? When we understand what someone experiencing Alzheimer's or dementia is going through, we can truly help them enjoy more peace and security at home. This book will help you recognize the unmet emotional needs that are causing problems, giving you a better understanding and ability to address them. The good news about dementia is that home care is possible. There are infinitely more happy times and experiences to be shared together. Be a part of caring for, honoring, and upholding the life of someone you love by helping them experience Alzheimer's or dementia with dignity. Judy Cornish is the author of The Dementia Handbook-How to Provide Dementia Care at Home, founder of the Dementia & Alzheimer's Wellbeing Network(R) (DAWN), and creator of the DAWN Method. She is also a geriatric care manager and elder law attorney, member of the National Association of Elder Law Attorneys (NAELA) and the American Society on Aging (ASA).

In this The Inner World of Unaware Phenomena: Pathways to Brain, Behavior, and Implicit Memory, authors Bruce J. Diamond, Amy E. Learmonth, and Katherine Makarec argue that there is an inner world within all of us that profoundly impacts our lives, and that memories, perceptions, tastes, preferences, biases, and beliefs are encoded and expressed on an unaware, largely non-conscious level. In other words, many aspects of our lives and actions are guided and influenced by factors about which we may know very little, but which nevertheless alter the quality, substance, and trajectory of our lives, our loves, our likes, and our dislikes. Drawing on novel experimental designs and computer and imaging-based technologies, the authors demonstrate that people can react to faces and places in measurable ways, despite the fact that they may profess to having never seen or visited these faces or places. The authors show that these unaware phenomena are not isolated instances, but rather that they permeate and influence virtually every aspect of our lives.

In 1953, 27-year-old Henry Gustave Molaison underwent an experimental "psychosurgical" procedure -- a targeted lobotomy -- in an effort to alleviate his debilitating epilepsy. The outcome was unexpected -- when Henry awoke, he could no longer form new memories, and for the rest of his life would be trapped in the moment. But Henry's tragedy would prove a gift to humanity. As renowned neuroscientist Suzanne Corkin explains in Permanent Present Tense, she and her colleagues brought to light the sharp contrast between Henry's crippling memory impairment and his preserved intellect. This new insight that the capacity for remembering is housed in a specific brain area revolutionized the science of memory. The case of Henry -- known only by his initials H. M. until his death in 2008 -- stands as one of the most consequential and widely referenced in the spiraling field of neuroscience. Corkin and her collaborators worked closely with Henry for nearly fifty years, and in Permanent Present Tense she tells the incredible story of the life and legacy of this intelligent, quiet, and remarkably good-humored man. Henry never remembered Corkin from one meeting to the next and had only a dim conception of the importance of the work they were doing together, yet he was consistently happy to see her and always willing to participate in her research. His case afforded untold advances in the study of memory, including the discovery that even profound amnesia spares some kinds of learning, and that different memory processes are localized to separate circuits in the human brain. Henry taught us that learning can occur without conscious awareness, that short-term and long-term memory are distinct capacities, and that the effects of aging-related disease are detectable in an already damaged brain. Undergirded by rich details about the functions of the human brain, Permanent Present Tense pulls back the curtain on the man whose misfortune propelled a half-century of exciting research. With great clarity, sensitivity, and grace, Corkin brings readers to the cutting edge of neuroscience in this deeply felt elegy for her patient and friend.