AlzAuthors: Jana Panarites, author of "Scattered: My Year As An Accidental Caregiver"

by Jana Panarites

On a Monday night in November 2009, I had what turned out to be the last conversation I would ever have with my father. He and my mother had just come back from a trip to New York and they were now back in our family home in Maryland. Out in Los Angeles, I paced the floor as I spoke with them. My career was at a standstill. I was scrambling to make ends meet. I didn’t think life could get any worse, but it did the next morning when I learned my father was dead. Hours after we’d gotten off the phone, his heart had stopping beating.

Devastated, I flew east for the funeral and arrived at my parents’ house to find my once vibrant eighty-year-old mother standing hollow-eyed in the hallway. My parents had been married for fifty-six years. I knew that in good marriages like theirs, it wasn’t unusual for one spouse to die soon after the other because the surviving spouse loses the will to live. Having just lost my father, I couldn’t bear the thought of losing my mother too. So after spending my entire adult life in New York and LA, I moved back to the Maryland suburbs, into my childhood home—determined to save my career and my one remaining parent.

Like most caregivers, I had no idea what I was getting myself into. In between taking my mother to medical appointments and trying to make sense of her increasingly absent-minded behavior, I tried to earn a living. It took me a while to realize I already had a full-time job: caring for Mom. We wound up living together for a little more than three years, and in the third year my mother was diagnosed with the early stages of Alzheimer’s disease.

I wrote Scattered to contribute to a much-needed conversation about the impact of Alzheimer’s on family members. Before my mother was diagnosed, no one I knew talked about Alzheimer’s and I knew little about the disease. In the midst of grief and career transition, I felt confused, isolated and anxious—not just about my future, but about my mother’s. Scattered was my way of coming to terms with her illness and assuring readers with family members who have dementia that they are not alone.

Readers have praised Scattered for its candidness, accessibility and humor. A reviewer on Amazon wrote, “Reading it gave me tears but also laughter as I read her definition of "hanging in [t]here." I have recently used that phrase when asked about my husband's condition and the author's definition is perfect. Thank you Jana!”

Knowing I’ve helped even one reader feel less alone in their Alzheimer’s journey has given me great joy. Writing Scattered wasn’t easy, but I’m at peace with what I wrote mostly because of my mother’s response when I told her she might not like some of the things I’d written about her. She said, “It’s the truth, isn’t it?” Priceless. And vintage Mom.

About the Author 

Jana Panarites was born in Washington, DC to Greek-American parents. Her professional experience runs the gamut, from working in network television production and writing screenplays to managing the needs of high net-worth clients as a criminal litigation paralegal. In December 2014 she founded Agewyz Media Group, LLC to raise awareness about the plight of caregivers and promote healthy aging across the generations. Through her book, Scattered: My Year As An Accidental Caregiver and her weekly radio show, The Agewyz Podcast, she aims to provide people with tools and resources to make every moment in life count, at every age and even under the most difficult of circumstances. Jana is a graduate of the University of Vermont, where she earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in Communications; and the University of Southern California, where she earned a Master’s in Public Diplomacy, a joint degree from the Annenberg School of Communications & Journalism, and the School of International Relations.

Connect with Jana Panarites

Jana on Twitter

Agewyz Facebook page

LinkedIn

Scattered on the Agewyz website

Scattered on Amazon

AlzAuthors: Angela G. Gentile's Self-Help Book for Caregivers Educates, Supports and Comforts

By Angela G. Gentile, M.S.W., R.S.W.

When I titled my book “Caring for a Husband with Dementia: The Ultimate Survival Guide” (2015) I did not expect to have people mistakenly assume that I am a wife caring for a husband with dementia. The warmth and sympathy I receive from people who don’t know me personally has been incredible. I gently explain that I am not a wife caregiver and that the book is inspired by the experience I had in counselling eight amazing caregiving women. 

 When I was deciding on a topic for my master’s degree final project I decided to focus on older women. I explored what issues are affecting them, and the subject of caregiving came up quite often. I did some research on the subject and discovered that there was very little written about women who care for husbands with Alzheimer’s or a related dementia. My career as a geriatric clinician and social worker exposes me to many different mental health issues and dementia is unfortunately a common one. I quickly became an expert in assessing and screening for dementia, and recognizing the symptoms of caregiver stress and burnout. 

The short-term, individual counselling program I designed, implemented and evaluated with eight caregiving wives was very rewarding and successful. It inspired me to want to help others like the women I had learned so much from. What started out as a small booklet turned into a 16-chapter book. “Caring for a Husband with Dementia” was written specifically to help women who care for husbands who have been diagnosed with a dementing illness such as vascular dementia or Alzheimer’s disease. I dedicated this book to caregiving wives, everywhere.

Writing this book came surprisingly easy to me. I called it a “Divine Intervention.” I received help from colleagues and other experts in the field who generously donated their time reviewing, editing and offering feedback. It is a unique, informative and therapeutic self-help type of book. The book offers opportunity to make it personal for the reader. There is space for self-reflection on important questions. Don’t know what to “Google” to find your local resources? I’ll help with that, too. There is a listing of helpful and important resources, plus more.

All of the reviews and feedback I have received thus far has been very positive. Some of the more helpful feedback has been that this book is written not only for wives, but for allcaregivers. I have been told this book is like a bible and it is keptat the bedside and is read every night. It’s a reference guide, a companion, and a source of education and support. It’s like a year’s worth of therapy all in one book. 

I know this book has helped spouses and other caregivers. They have told me, “Everything I was thinking, feeling and wondering about was written in this book.” I am honoured to beable to help those who are struggling with the issues of diagnosis, getting help, difficult behaviours, grief and loss, legal issues and more. I have been at book signing events where even men say they want their wives to buy this book as they want them to be prepared – “…just in case.”

My hope is that this book reaches those who are in need of education, support and tips on how to survive the difficult task of caring for a loved one with dementia. It is also a great gift forsomeone in need.

About the Author

Angela G. Gentile, M.S.W., R.S.W. is a clinician, older adult specialist and author who has more than 25 years of experience working with older adults and their families in a variety of capacities. She is currently employed as a Geriatric Mental Health Clinician and enjoys writing, traveling, photography and exploring what it means to age well. She is a realistic optimist who lives in Winnipeg, Manitoba with her husband and two children. For more information, please go to: www.AngelaGGentile.com.

Guest Author: Andrew Joyce on Researching His Historical Novel "Yellow Tail"

Today's guest author conducted painstaking research into his three novels and shares his methods here for anyone aspiring to write a historical novel or any novel which has its basis in reality. I have done the same research myself for both of my novels. I am a stickler for accuracy, and although I trusted my knowledge on Alzheimer's disease and competitive swimming, I still spent months researching these topics. The last thing a writer wants to  learn in a review or reader mail is that she messed something up. It damages your credibility and takes the reader out of the story. I'll let Andrew Joyce tell you more about this.

***

My name is Andrew Joyce and I write books for a living. I would like to thank Marianne for allowing me to be here today to promote my latest, Yellow Hair, which documents the injustices done to the Sioux Nation from their first treaty with the United States in 1805 through Wounded Knee in 1890. Every death, murder, battle, and outrage I write about actually took place. The historical figures that play a role in my fact-based tale of fiction were real people and I use their real names.Yellow Hair is an epic tale of adventure, family, love, and hate that spans most of the 19th century. 

Through no fault of his own, a young man is thrust into a new culture just at the time that culture is undergoing massive changes. It is losing its identity, its lands, and its dignity. He not only adapts, he perseveres and, over time, becomes a leader—and on occasion, the hand of vengeance against those who would destroy his adopted people. 

Now that the commercial is out of the way, we can get down to what I really came here to talk about: the research that goes into writing an historical novel or an action/adventure novel that uses an historical event as a backdrop.

I want to say that I learned the hard way how important proper research is. But it wasn’t really that hard of a lesson. In my first book, which takes place in the last half of the 19th century, I made two mistakes. I had the date of an event off by one year and I had my hero loading the wrong caliber cartridge into his Winchester rifle. I would have gone blissfully throughout life not knowing how I had erred if not for my astute fans. Both mistakes were quickly pointed out to me in reviews of the book. One guy said he would have given me five stars if not for the wrong caliber bullet mistake. I had to settle for only four stars. Lesson learned!

Before I get into telling you about the year-long research I did for Yellow Hair, I’d like to tell you how I researched my second and third books and describe what that research entailed.

My second book was a western and the protagonist was a woman. The research took about three months. I had to know everything from women’s undergarments of the late 19th century to prison conditions for women in those days. (I sent my heroine to jail.) That kind of research was easy. Thank God for the internet. But then I had to do some real research. Molly (my protagonist) built up her cattle ranch to one of the largest in Montana, but she and her neighbors had nowhere to sell their beef. So Molly decided to drive her and her neighbors’ cattle to Abilene where she could get a good price. She put together the second largest herd on record (12,000 head) and took off for Abilene.

That’s when I had to really go to work. I wanted my readers to taste the dust on the trail. I wanted them to feel the cold water at river crossing. I wanted them to know about the dangers of the trail, from rustlers to Indians to cattle stampedes.

This is how I learned about all those things and more. First of all, I found old movies that were authentic in nature. I watched them to get a feel for the trail. Then I read books by great authors who had written about cattle drives to soak up even more of the atmosphere of a cattle drive. That was all well and good, but it still did not put me in the long days of breathing dust and being always fearful of a stampede.

That’s when I went looking for diaries written by real cowboys while they were on the trail. After that, I found obscure self-published books written by those cowboys. Then it was onto newspaper articles written at the time about large cattle drives. That’s how I had Molly herd the second largest cattle drive. I discovered that the largest was 15,000 head, driven from Texas to California in 1882.

My next book took place in the Yukon during the Klondike Gold Rush of 1897. Here new elements were added such as wolves and the extreme weather as adversaries. Dogsledding was also involved. I have seen snow only three times in my life and I have never dogsledded. I knew even less about wolves. I had to learn about those things. I had no idea what it was like to travel across a wilderness on a dogsled at seventy degrees below zero. I also had to acquire knowledge about the dogs themselves, especially the lead dog. I learned about all that by doing the same things I did for my second book. The old diaries were the most helpful. As to the gold rush, there was plenty of material in the form of self-published books by some of the participants. Some were never even published, but I found copies of them in the archives of universities and historical societies. Again, newspaper stories printed at the time were very useful. Concerning wolves . . . I read everything I could get my hands on about wolves—their habits, the pack hierarchy, the alpha male, and the different jobs or tasks the males and females have while hunting.

Now we come to Yellow Hair. As I mentioned above, the book is about the Sioux Nation from 1805 to 1890. I had to know both points of view, the white man’s and the Sioux’s. Getting to know the whites’ take on things was easy. There are many, many books (non-fiction) that were written at the time. I even found a book written by Custer detailing his strategy for wiping out the Sioux entirely. That was hard reading. And, again, there were universities and historical societies whose archives were a great help.

As to the Sioux’s point of view, there are a few books that were dictated to newspapermen years later by the Indians that took part in the various battles that I weave into my story. I found a lot of material from Native American participants of the Little Big Horn, written twenty to thirty years after the fact.

But I wanted to immerse myself in the Sioux culture and I wanted to give them dignity by using their language wherever possible. I also wanted to introduce them by their Sioux names. So, I had to learn the Lakota language. And that wasn’t easy. There is a consortium that will teach you, but they wanted only serious students. You have to know a smattering of the language before they will even deign to let you in. I had to take a test to prove that I knew some Lakota. I failed the first time and had to go back to my Lakota dictionary and do some more studying. I got in on my second try.

I’m running out of space, so I reckon I’ll wrap it up. I hope I’ve given you a little insight into the research process. It’s time-consuming and sometimes frustrating. But it is also a blast. Every new discovery is like finding the motherlode.

I’d like to sign off with another commercial. The three books I alluded to above are:

• Redemption: The Further Adventures of Huck Finn and Tom Sawyer

• Molly Lee

• Resolution: Huck Finn’s Greatest Adventure

I would like to thank Marianne once again for having me over and you good folks for tuning in.

Andrew Joyce

 About the Author

Andrew Joyce left high school at seventeen to hitchhike throughout the US, Canada, and Mexico. He wouldn’t return from his journey until decades later when he decided to become a writer. Joyce has written five books, including a two-volume collection of one hundred and fifty short stories comprised of his hitching adventures called BEDTIME STORIES FOR GROWN-UPS (as yet unpublished), and his latest novel, YELLOW HAIR. He now lives aboard a boat in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, with his dog, Danny, where he is busy working on his next book, tentatively entitled, MICK REILLY.

AlzAuthors: Laurie L.C. Lewis, and The Dragons of Alsace Farm, a novel

By Laurie L.C. Lewis

Like our family, my proposed WWII mystery, The Dragons of Alsace Farm, was also changed by our mother’s diagnosis of dementia.

After my father’s passing, Mom threw herself into her farm and animals, finding purpose in the care of her “babies” and the maintenance of her land. Progress on the book slowed when our previously happy, healthy mother began exhibiting signs of what we assumed was depression, needing more of our time and care. Her mood swings were erratic and her reality seemed very skewed. She was often sick, and we suspected that her hygiene and cooking skills were slipping, causing recurring stomach distress.

Over and over, we took her to her internist, pulling the physician aside to express our concerns that something was amiss. Each time, Mom charmed her, redirecting all questions about her health and routine to another topic with the skill of a railroad switch operator. We were always assured that she was great, and dismissed without getting any solid help. But the changes increased, and a neurologist finally concluded that Mom had dementia. Fear became her new reality. Fear, frustration, and guilt became ours.

After interviews with caregivers, loved ones, and health care providers, we realized we weren’t alone. Although most people are impacted by dementia in some way, I was aware of only a few books tackling the topic. I decided to ramp up the tension in my book by placing my WWII survivor, Agnes, on the dementia spectrum, allowing me to offer readers a glimpse into the impact of the disease on individuals and entire families.

Soon after Mom’s diagnosis, we found a young couple with mild disabilities who wanted more independence. They moved into Mom’s home for a time, offering farm help and companionship in exchange for rent. Mom believed she was helping them, and they felt they were helping her. As a result, the three of them rose above their limitations to lift and serve one another.

Inspired by these observations, I spoke with counselors at the local Department of Aging to see if we could pair people who have a home but need help, with people who could help but need a home.  

Legal barriers killed the idea, but I decided to introduce this dynamic into the book. I turned to two friends/family therapists to help me accurately create Noah and Tayte—characters with alternative challenges who would similarly impact Agnes. My mystery had now morphed into a family drama about internal dragons—the fears and secrets we all battle.

It’s been very gratifying to see how people are reacting to the book. Many say it hits close to home. Readers love the characters, especially Agnes, who reminds them of some loved one who has been similarly affected by dementia. They also mention the hopeful, redemptive message in “The Dragons of Alsace Farm.”

On a personal note, writing “Dragons” was cathartic and healing. Writing Agnes’s scenes helped me step away from my concerns and see things from Mom’s perspective. Like Tayte, I finally stopped trying to “restore” her, and learned to appreciate her for whom, and where, she is. Like Noah, I recognize that she still remembers what matters most—love. 

About the Author
Laurie L.C. Lewis also writes as Addison Tayte. She is the author of The Dragons of Alsace Farm, and other novels, including the Free Men and Dreamers historical fiction series.

Connect with Laurie (L.C.) Lewis

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By Sandra Bullock Smith

When I first started caring for my mother, I had no apprehension over how difficult the caregiving job would be. I am a strong, capable woman and my mother was gracious, sweet and appreciative. She tended to know the limitations age delivered to her. I tended to know everything. I had siblings who could help me care for her. What could go wrong? The short answer is “a lot.”

One day as I sat in a hospital with my mother, I realized that in so many ways we had traded places. I was now the mother. I was not prepared for that role reversal. I was not prepared for the emotional challenges of my mother’s declining health and mental abilities. I was not prepared for the myriad situations for which there was no “right” answer. I sought out reading material that would help me feel like I was doing the right thing, making the best decisions. I wanted to read about other’s experiences while caring for a parent. Sadly, there was little I could find on the topic.

While caring for Mom, I found I was using phrases with her that she used with us as children. Phrases such as, “don’t give your food to the dog” and “you’ve had enough sugar today.” I kept a journal of these phrases and other experiences of caregiving. At some point I looked at my notes and thought if I could turn my experiences into a book, it might be helpful to others who were caring for a family member. That was the genesis of my book, Trading Places: Becoming My Mother’s Mother.

This book is a very personal collection of stories for me. Trading Places documents the living, breathing caregiving for my beloved mother. Some of the stories might have been embarrassing to her, so I decided not to publish it until she passed away. Even then, the thought of publishing these personal stories still terrified me. But I did it. A friend told me that I had “dared greatly” by publishing the stories. He said, “What you’ve done is remarkable.” When I started to get feedback from my readers, I knew I had done the right thing. One reader wrote, “For any potential caregiver who has staved off acceptance of the probability of filling these shoes, Trading Places is where to begin. This beautifully narrated account is the light that expunges the monster from under the bed. It is a deep breath of acknowledgment and determination.”

Another reader emailed me and explained that she felt such guilt about whether she had done the right things for her parent until she read my book. She was able to see that my experiences and hers were very similar. To know this book helped even one person to deal with the powerful emotions of caregiving makes me very grateful.

My goal in writing this book was to deliver a very heartfelt, uplifting message about family caregiving. I think I succeeded based on the sincere, touching reviews the book has received. But it is much more than a book about caring for an aging parent. It’s a book about a life well-lived. It’s a book about treating others with dignity and respect. It’s a book about love.

About the Author

Sandra Bullock Smith is a retired human resources executive, world traveler, angler, adventure junkie and storyteller. She grew up in northwest Florida and spent 20+ years in the colorful gumbo of south Louisiana. Her current home base is Santa Fe, New Mexico, where she lives with her husband, Mike and their mongrel pups. Mike is an endurance runner so you can often find her out in the woods supporting ultra runners at 100 mile trail runs.

One of her greatest challenges in life was the ten-year period during which she and her siblings cared for their aging mother. This experience led her to pen her first book, Trading Places: Becoming My Mother's Mother. She hopes it offers insight and encouragement to anyone involved in a similar labor of love.

Connect with Sandra Bullock Smith

 

Sandra Bullock Smith (@Sbsmithauthor) | Twitter

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Writing a Vet - How My Character Led Me to Take on the Plight of Our Returning Veterans

Here's a little insight about being a writer: Sometimes a character can surprise its author.  She can turn out to be someone more powerful than the author imagined, drive the story in new directions, grab hold of the writer's imagination and not let go until she's completely fleshed out and satisfied.

photo by Scukrov via Dreamstime.com

This is what happened with my character Devon Keane, Aerin's mom in my young adult novel Swim Season. Veteran’s Day is a great day to tell you about Devon, an Army Reserve nurse, who demanded I tell her story because it’s the story of many women who serve in our military.

The story: Devon was on duty in the ER at St. Vincent’s Hospital in New York City the day terrorists struck down the Twin Towers. This hospital, just outside Ground Zero, was the first stop for victims and recovery workers in need of medical care. Deeply affected by the events of that day, Devon volunteered to work double shifts during the rescue and recovery effort. When the US went to war with Afghanistan, she enlisted in the Army Reserve, against her husband's wishes,  to provide care to the troops. 

On her second tour of duty, she participated in a mercy mission to help locals in a nearby village and was caught up in a suicide bombing. Shrapnel ripped through her right hip, requiring surgery resulting in complications, infection, chronic pain issues, an addiction to narcotic painkillers, and post-traumatic stress disorder.  She returned to her family as so many other veterans do: broken in body and spirit. Her drug addiction eventually led her to steal narcotics from her employer. She was caught, took a plea deal, and is serving a six-month sentence with rehabilitation during her daughter's last high school swim season.

I didn’t know Devon too well at the start of the story.  She’s absent other than being referred to in conversations and letters and doesn’t come on to the stage until page 170. The funny thing is that as I approached the scene where Devon enters the story as a full character, I found myself excited to finally meet her. She intrigued me, and I lingered over the writing of it.  I grew attached to her, and when I finished the chapter I was unable to go on with the story for a few weeks because I didn’t want to leave her behind. She only makes two more appearances in the book, but is present in other ways, including letters and email, and her love for Aerin pervades the entire novel.

I have no military experience and don’t know any female vets or soldiers personally, so I did my research for this character through literature.  I spent the summer of 2014 reading a number of different memoirs to learn about women’s experience in war, the work of military nurses, and coming home.  Some of the best I read were Love My Rifle More Than You by Kayla Williams, Soldier Girls - The Battles of Three Women at Home and at War by Helen Thorpe, and Ruff’s War, by Cdr. Cheryl Lynn Ruff, USN and Cdr. K. Sue Roper, USN (Ret.) All of these provided great insight and answered a lot of questions.  Studying these soldiers’ stories gave me a great appreciation for their service and sacrifice.

Characters can lead us into new worlds, teach us new things, and take us places we didn’t plan to go.  I would not have researched these military women were it not for writing the story of Devon Keane.  This research has enabled me to be a better nurse to the veterans I serve in my role as a campus nurse at a community college.

I’ve decided to write a sequel to Swim Season, and this will be about Devon and her recovery and re-entrance into society after she's released from her incarceration. As I go on to write this story, I will continue to read the literature and reach out to veterans for personal interviews to deepen my insight.

As our veterans return from wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and from other hot spots around the globe, it’s important we recognize their dedication.  Parades and platitudes are great, but our vets deserve a health system that meets all their needs – physical and mental – without delays and with the best medical care possible.  Politics should not be a part of this equation.  Our soldiers deserve the best.  After all, that’s what they give us.

Learn more about Swim Season.

By Constance Vincent, PhD.

When my parents first began to have memory problems, I was in denial. As a psychologist teaching university classes on aging, I had always emphasized the positive aspects of growing older. Alzheimer’s disease had never been on my radar. It is now.

Mom and Dad were relatively young and quite healthy in 1978 when they moved from their small town in Pennsylvania to live near my three siblings and me in southern California. For the next ten years, my husband Ed and I socialized with my parents frequently––even taking vacations together. Then Ed and I moved to the San Francisco Bay area, and with more time between visits, I began to notice gradual differences in my dad. He called it “slowing down.” He was almost eighty when he made the decision for him and Mom to follow my only brother and move near Las Vegas. It seemed logical enough; my brother was not only the youngest in our family and a medical doctor, he was divorced and had no children. My father gave him power of attorney and basically turned himself and my mother over to my brother’s care.

When my father died at the age of 87, my mother was 85 and showing signs of mild cognitive impairment (MCI). A year later, my brother and one sister moved Mom into a senior residence without a family discussion. My mother was distraught; she had never lived apart from her family before.

I became a long-distance caregiver with no authority, influence, or even information (no HIPPA reports). For the next two years I visited Mom in Nevada as often as possible, brought her to Puerto Vallarta with us twice and to our home in California three times.

But then the first of three dramatic changes occurred. My brother found Mom delirious and dehydrated after she was left alone for an unknown time. She was quickly diagnosed with Alzheimer’s and transferred to a memory care unit. Now there would be no more trips for her. I called her often to give her comfort and stimulation; her conversations included the hope of escaping and the fear of losing her identity. Her feelings were so poignant that I wrote down her words after each call.

The next two dramatic changes involved her losing her sight for several months and then, two years later, breaking her hip. She passed away at the age of 96, after living in institutions for ten years.

Sometime between Mom’s eye and hip incidents, I began to write her story, including the feelings she had shared. I was learning so much about AD through my research, but I was powerless to change her circumstances of loneliness, depression, lack of nutrients, and losses (even of vision). As much as I wanted to help her avoid the risks of AD, I soon realized I was too late.

Yet I’m not too late to fight for myself––and the millions like me who are also at risk for AD, by age and genetics and even by sex. Hence the title of what became my book: Not Going Gently: A Psychologist Fights Back against Alzheimer's for Her Mother. . .and Perhaps Herself. And now that it is also in Spanish on Amazon print and on Kindle, the Spanish title is No Me Iré Dócilmente.

In talks with groups, radio interviews, and blogs I emphasize three key areas in fighting Alzheimer’s disease: First prevention––the individual’s role; Second––planning, for the family; Third, protection––the role of society for research, education, and better care. My YouTube video elaborates the first need: New Directions in Preventing AD. 

Most readers feel the story “needs to be told—so many others will. . .identify with this.” One said, “You’ve given me a lot of information—regarding nutrition, etc.—that I’ve already started trying to put into practice with my own family. And your encouragement to have conversations with family and to be prepared for the worst has prompted me to start broaching these subjects with my parents as well.”

I have been fortunate to receive almost all five star reviews such as this:

“. . .a touching and harrowing narrative combined with the latest scientific/medical facts about the disease. Most practical books are slow reads. Yours is so personal and compelling. Most of us, in our lives, will need a book like this to help us through the tough times when a friend or family member may be diagnosed with dementia or Alzheimer's.”

One reader said: “As a primary caregiver for a family member in the first stages of this disease, I found this book extremely helpful and enlightening and would highly recommend it to all baby boomers who are or might possibly be caring for aging loved ones.”

Connect with Constance Vincent, PhD

Website  (includes podcasts)

Facebook: Constance Vincent

Facebook: Not Going Gently

Link to book: Not Going Gently