AlzAuthors Presentation

Being part of AlzAuthors is a tremendous privilege and pleasure. Given that the organisation curates and promotes over 400 books and resources and therefore have an extremely large pool of authors from which to choose, it's an especial privilege that Peter and I are invited to contribute to some of their events.

Yesterday saw the live presentation of "Everything you wanted to know about Alzheimer's but were too afraid to ask" (mark 2) where Marianne and Christy hosted four amazing authors and dementia advocates. Sadly, Wendy Mitchell couldn't attend but Peter, Jennifer Bute, Michael Ellenbogan and Gerda Saunders were really happy to share their honest assessments of the changes in their condition since they last all met, some two years ago. This event was recorded and so will be available via AlzAuthors website soon.

Whilst each author has a different experience and perspective from the others, there were three common themes to emerge from each of them:

the importance of having a purpose

the importance of retaining a positivity

the importance of taking responsibility for their own well being in conjunction with medication.

I think these are themes we can all take and use in our life, dementia or not. As Beckett so succinctly, if somewhat bleakly, said "We give birth astride a grave" and so it is really up to us to utilise the time we have to its best effect. Living with a diagnosis of dementia presents huge challenges which must not be minimised or trivialised but living well with it CAN be done and these four remarkable people are proof of this.

Don't think that dementia is something that happens to other people: the statistics are frightening and so it's worth listening to people who are living with this disease and taking heed of their wisdom.