Changing ‘the tragedy narrative’: Why a growing camp is promoting a more joyful approach to Alzheimer’s

Changing ‘the tragedy narrative’: Why a growing camp is promoting a more joyful approach to Alzheimer’s

Alzheimer’s is now the diagnosis Americans fear most. Fewer than half of patients diagnosed with ALZ are told. “The main framework America has available to contend with this is . . . that it’s a terrible, destructive ride all the way down and then you die,” he...
Changing ‘the tragedy narrative’: Why a growing camp is promoting a more joyful approach to Alzheimer’s

Lifestyle guru B. Smith has Alzheimer’s. Her husband has a girlfriend. Her fans aren’t having it.

20 years ago, when B. Smith was on TV, on the cover of magazines and books, when she had restaurants, when everyone seemed to call her “the black Martha Stewart,” as if it weren’t enough to just be B. Smith. Six years ago, she was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease....
The Comforting Fictions of Dementia Care

The Comforting Fictions of Dementia Care

When do we owe people the full truth about their lives? What happens when people cannot understand the truth or cannot accept the truth, so insisting on it only causes them repeated pain? The streetscape at the Lantern, the home at Chagrin Valley, is particularly...
A Photographer Turns A Lens On His Father’s Alzheimer’s

Family Caregivers Exchange Tips, Share Stories To Ease Alzheimer’s Losses

Vicki Bartholomew started a support group for wives who are caring for a husband with Alzheimer’s disease because she needed that sort of group herself. “My husband’s still living, and now I’m in an even more difficult situation — I’m...
Rethinking My Broken Relationship with My Troubled Dad Now That He’s Dead

Rethinking My Broken Relationship with My Troubled Dad Now That He’s Dead

I knew my father abused drugs. I watched that man abuse drugs since I was five. I had memorized the shape and texture of the turquoise tiles of our old bathroom floor. I picked my unconscious father off of that tiled floor more than once. The weirdest part of his...
Tiffany Haddish on the first thing she did when she got rich

Tiffany Haddish on the first thing she did when she got rich

The first thing she did when she made it big was to help her family, as many newly rich celebrities do. But her gesture has a poignant backstory. Haddish’s first big financial move was to get her mom out of a mental institution, she told GQ. When Haddish was 8, her...