AlzAuthors: Untangling Alzheimer's & Dementia

About Lori La Bey Lori La Bey is known as an international visionary when it comes to dementia care. Just ask Oprah, Maria Shriver, or Dr. Oz who have all recognized her for her work. Prior to becoming the founder of an international advocacy group and media outlet for dementia, she cared for her own mother who lived with the condition for 30 years. Confounded by the lack of resources available to...

About Gincy Heins Gincy Heins became caregiver to her husband at the age of 49 when he was diagnosed with Mild Cognitive Impairment, also known as MCI, a neurological condition that causes a slight but noticeable and measurable decline in cognitive abilities. Memory and thinking skills are primarily affected, and there is a very real possibility of future Alzheimer’s or another dementia. At the ti...

This podcast is a replay of one that appeared last year with our friends Peter Berry and Deb Bunt. They’ve written a new book, a volume of poetry, musings, that Peter sent to Deb via text messages at the end of long days living with dementia. She transcribed his words and lovingly put them in a book called Walk With Me: Musings Through The Dementia Fog . Its pages are exquisitely illustrated with...

About Love Stories: Keeping Romance Alive in Dementia Care Caring for a spouse with Alzheimer’s or other dementia carries with it a lot of changes and uncharted territory. At the heart of these changes may be the very foundation of what makes you a couple: romance. New roles, a new lifestyle, and sometimes new living arrangements can take their toll on even the closest of couples. On Wednesday, Fe...

About Rosanne Corcoran Rosanne Corcoran cared for her mother over a 12-year span, starting as a stealth caregiver, to full time caregiver, to in-home, sandwich caregiver for her mother’s final 6 years. Finding herself part of a growing caregiving community in need of both support and critical information, she has conducted exhaustive research into caregiving strategies for aging parents. To assist...

About Susan Landeis Susan Landeis and her mother shared a difficult childhood, leading to abandonment issues, estrangement, and then a need for care on a dementia journey. Despite decades of abuse, Susan put aside her feelings and came to her mother’s aid, taking on not only the role of mom’s caregiver, but eventually the role of caring for her father. This experience inspired her first book, Opti...

About Helene Berger Prior to assuming the role of dementia caregiver to Ady, her husband of fifty years, Helene Berger held major positions of leadership throughout her life, in her home community of Miami, Florida, and across the United States. She is recognized as a powerful and inspirational speaker, and has used her voice and influence to marshal help for large and diverse groups of people wit...

About Debra Tann, Ed. D.   As a young child, Debra Tann encountered what she later learned to be dementia in her beloved great grandmother. At the time, the condition was known as “senility.” This encounter had a significant impact on her young heart and mind. Many years later, after a 14-year career as a professor in Political Science, and another 14 years operating an independent Christian schoo...

About Kimberly Best  RN, MA When a family member is diagnosed with dementia, a number of complicated issues may arise: family conflict, the re-emergence of old slights and misunderstandings, disagreements on how to provide care or navigate the journey, and more. Mediator and conflict coach Kimberly Best is passionate about helping others resolve such conflicts in a productive, non-litigious way, a...

Support AlzAuthors at https://alzauthors.com/donate Please leave a review and share this podcast with a caregiver or loved one on a dementia journey. * * * About Sue Ryan The caregiver journey can either make us or break us. Sue Ryan experienced dementia for more than 30 years with several loved ones, including her father, and now her husband. These journeys have opened her heart and mind to great...

Caring for a mother with Alzheimer’s can be difficult. Compound that with your own cancer diagnosis and treatment, as well as 90 miles between you, and the experience borders on impossible. But Dr. Barbara Ella Milton Jr. heeded her mother’s call to step in and offer her support throughout her journey. She asked herself three important questions when she got the call: Could I? Should I? Would I? T...

Jennifer Fink is the daughter, granddaughter, and great granddaughter of three women who have succumbed to Alzheimer’s or other cognitive impairments. Her quest to discover how not to become the fourth generation in her family with this condition, while also seeking ways to better connect with her mother, led her to her new passion, podcasting. She is the producer and host of Fading Memories, a po...

Edie Weinstein is the youngest of the AlzAuthors. She published her illustrated children’s book, Grandpa and Lucy: A Story About Love and Dementia, at the tender age of 16! But today, at 18 and a college student, she may be one of our wisest contributors. Unlike most of our authors, Edie did not write her book because of a personal experience with dementia. She wrote it as a Girl Scouts Silver Awa...

The Rev. Dr. Cynthia Huling Hummel is an Alzheimer's artist, author, and advocate. She is the author of "UnMasking Alzheimer's: The Memories Behind the Mask,” a collection of photos of the 36 masks she created as a participant in an arts program called "Art Reflects" for those living with memory loss and their care partners. Cynthia says she started with one mask and couldn't stop! Each one reveal...

Pam Ostrowski was the first to recognize her mother’s Alzheimer’s symptoms and spent 14 years with her on her journey. This led her to become a Certified Senior Advisor (CSA)®, a Certified Dementia Practitioner (CDP®), and Certified in Dementia Care® (CDC®). She is passionate about educating families on dementia care, to help them attain peace of mind while caring for a loved one. Pam pulled toget...

James Russell is a man caring for his daughter with early onset Alzheimer’s in assisted living. (Lynne Russell passed away on January 19, 2024.) Lynn was diagnosed in 2017 at the age of 51. She represents the fourth generation of the Russell family affected by dementia. In the early days of her diagnosis, Jim, her dad, and her mother, Karen, relocated from their home to be closer to Lynn, and to a...

Bobbi Carducci is a national speaker on Alzheimer’s and dementia, how it affects entire families, and how to prepare to care – what adults need to know about these diagnoses before and after they strike home. Taking on the role of caregiver for her father-in-law, Rodger, for seven years ultimately inspired her to embark on a new path in life, where she is a caregiver advocate, support group leader...

Alex Winstanley is a best-selling author and award-winning social entrepreneur from Wigan, England. Through his books, he raises awareness of a range of long-term health conditions, in a positive and supportive way, for children and young people. He is extremely passionate about promoting a diverse and inclusive society, where every person is valued and celebrated. Each of his books are inspired b...

Donna Thomson and Dr. Zachary White are co-authors of The Unexpected Journey of Caring: The Transformation of Loved One to Caregiver (Rowman & Littlefield, 2019). Donna Thomson is a caregiver, author, and activist. The mother of two grown children, one who has severe cerebral palsy and medical complexity, she also helped care for her mother who lived with dementia until she passed away in the...

Susan Cushman cared for her mother during her dementia journey and considered it a blessing. One of the upsides to Alzheimer’s, she says, is that she got a new mother. After a lifetime of abuse, her mother “forgot” to be cruel to her, and their relationship improved. About her book, Tangles and Plaques: A Mother and Daughter Face Alzheimer’s,” she says, “The tangles and plaques that destroyed Moth...

Leah Stanley is the author of Goodnight, Sweet: A Caregiver’s Long Goodbye, the memoir she wrote years after caring for her beloved grandparents, both diagnosed with dementia. At the time she was a 29-year-old newlywed with no clue about elder issues, dementia, or caregiving. She had to learn fast! When her dementia journey ended, she realized she wanted to take her hard-earned lessons and share t...

Joy Johnston is a digital journalist, author, and caregiver advocate based in Atlanta, Georgia. Her collection of personal essays on caregiving, titled The Reluctant Caregiver , received a gold medal at the 2018 Independent Publisher Book Awards. She also writes about dementia and caregiving on her blog,  The Memories Project , which was honored as one of the “Best Alzheimer’s Disease Blogs of 202...

Tracey Shorthouse was diagnosed with early onset Alzheimer’s and Posterior Cortical Atrophy in 2015 at age 45. A staff nurse in the United Kingdom’s National Health Service, she had to retire due to her diagnosis. Not being one to give up, she started to write short stories but found writing poetry was easier for her brain to contend with. Although at first her poems were about how she coped with...

This is the third and last in our Summer Book Series with HFC , aka Hilarity for Charity, for 2021. In this session Loretta Woodward Veney joined us for a discussion of her book Being My Mom’s Mom: A Journey Through Dementia from a Daughter’s Perspective. We talked about her work as a LEGO Ambassador and how that fits into her dementia care for her mom, and discussed other activities to help careg...

This is the second in our Summer Book Series with HFC , aka Hilarity for Charity. In this session Daniel Potts, MD, FAAN, and his wife Ellen Potts joined us for a discussion of their helpful book A Pocket Guide for the Alzheimer’s Caregiver. Daniel C. Potts, MD, FAAN is a neurologist, author, educator, and champion of those living with Alzheimer’s disease and other dementias and their care partner...