“Slow Dancing with a Stranger”: A Book Review for World Alzheimer’s Month
Today is the last day of the 3rd annual World Alzheimer’s Month™. In honor of this month I highly recommend an unflinching new memoir about dementia caregiving: “Slow Dancing with a Stranger: Lost and Found in the Age of Alzheimer’s” by Meryl Comer (HarperOne, September 2014). Few Alzheimer’s memoirs are this honest about the challenges of long-term dementia care, or as moving as a call to action for better dementia care and more funding for Alzheimer’s research.
Alzheimer’s disease, the most common type of dementia, is a growing epidemic. As more of us live longer, and boomers age, almost all of us will know someone with Alzheimer’s disease, develop it ourselves, or care for a person with the disease. One in eight people age 65 and older will develop Alzheimer’s disease, and nearly 50 percent of those age 85 and older. Alzheimer’s disease is the only cause of death in the top 10 with no cure, proven means of prevention, or way to slow its progression. And yet government funding for Alzheimer’s research is abysmal: only about $500 million a year compared to several billion each for cancer, HIV/AIDS and cardiovascular disease.
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