AlzAuthors: Untangling Alzheimer's & Dementia

AlzAuthors has partnered with HFC , (Hilarity for Charity) to present a Summer Book Series for Alzheimer’s and dementia families and caregivers. Each month, one of our authors meets with readers and caregivers online to discuss their book. The authors talk about their own dementia journeys and why they chose to write about them. They also answer questions from the attendees. It’s a wonderful way t...

On June 15, 2021, 5 of our authors came together for our first Virtual Q&A called “Everything You’ve Always Wanted to Know About Living with Dementia but Were Afraid to Ask.” We talked about their diagnoses, and they answered questions regarding their daily lives, how they cope with their condition, how they manage to keep a positive attitude, and so much more. You will learn so much! To learn...

Australian Kate Swaffer is a humanitarian and activist for disability rights in dementia and aged care. She's the Chair, CEO and co-founder of Dementia Alliance International, a global advocacy and support group for people living with dementia. Kate is also living with younger onset dementia, diagnosed in 2008 at age 49. She has won many awards for her work, including the 2018 Australian 100 Women...

Judy Cornish is the founder of the Dementia & Alzheimer’s Wellbeing Network (DAWN®) in Moscow, Idaho. Through her hands-on work with dementia, she developed a proprietary method for working with people who have dementia—one that helps them develop and retain a sense of security and wellbeing. She is the author of Dementia with Dignity and The Dementia Handbook. The DAWN Method® is simple enoug...

Elizabeth Miller is the creative genius behind Happy Healthy Caregiver, a community built for caregivers who may be overwhelmed with their responsibilities and long to find others to connect with as well as resources to make life easier. Her mission is to help caregivers become happier and healthier while caring for others. “We can do hard things,” she says, “but we don’t need to do them alone.” H...

What happens when two dementia advocates from opposite sides of the Atlantic who have each written books and blogs and host podcasts on the condition get together for a chat? The conversation flows and grows into a wealth of storytelling and sharing. This is what happened when Pippa Kelly joined me for a Zoom call. Pippa is the author of Invisible Ink , a novel that explores a man’s relationship w...

Richard Creighton began his blog, “Living with Alzheimer’s: A Real-Time Account of Dementia Caregiving,” the day his wife Kate was diagnosed in 2011. His goal was to keep a record of their experience for their children. He and Kate cared for family members together for 24 years, which included both his parents and his in-laws throughout various illnesses. Now he cares for her, deep into her dement...

Dr. Jennifer Bute lives in a dementia inclusive retirement village in Somerset, west of London. Previously she worked in Africa as a doctor before working as a GP for 25 years in England and was involved in medical education. Her career was cut short when she was diagnosed with young onset dementia ten years ago. She speaks at conferences and on radio and has been involved in television programs r...

We’re doing something a little different on the podcast today. It’s AlzAuthors 6th anniversary, and we’re celebrating by bringing the entire team together to talk about what goes on behind the scenes of this global organization of authors. We’ll talk about upcoming events and projects and plans for the coming year. You’ll learn about our acquisitions process, which is how we find the great books a...

Katya De Luisa is an artist, expressive arts program designer, freelance writer, and author with 20 years’ experience working with those living with dementia and their families. She firmly believes that when we change the way we look at something what we look at changes. Katya’s experience working in long-term care facilities as both a caregiver and as an art director has given her a wealth of ins...

Today’s guest is Renée Brown Harmon, MD, author of the teaching memoir “Surfing the Waves of Alzheimer's: Principles of Caregiving That Kept Me Upright.” She and her husband Harvey created, developed, and shared a thriving family medicine private practice in Birmingham, Alabama, for more than twenty years. In 2010, Harvey, at age 50, was diagnosed with early onset Alzheimer’s and forced to retire....

Ann Campanella is a former magazine and newspaper journalist, the author of two memoirs and four collections of poetry, and an AlzAuthors manager and director. Her award-winning writing has appeared in literary journals, newspapers and magazines across the country and around the world, and she has discussed her work on numerous podcasts. Ann’s first memoir, Motherhood: Lost and Found, was twice na...

Vincent Zappacosta has been a writer and photographer ever since he was a little boy back in Catholic school. His professional background has been in theatre, yoga, and graphic design. All of these skills came to be a blessing when his mother, Mama, was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s, and he and his husband Douglass became her caregivers. “Mama was a ham,” he says, and loved being the focus of attenti...

Carol Bradley Bursack, an author, columnist, consultant, and speaker, provided care to a neighbor and six elderly family members over the span of two decades, which led her to write Minding Our Elders: Caregivers Share Their Personal Stories, a portable support group for caregivers that is also used as a college text for gerontology and nursing home administration classes. Her websites Minding Our...

In this podcast, we’re turning the tables on podcast host and producer Marianne Sciucco. She is the guest and Jean Lee of AlzAuthors is the interviewer. Marianne is a co-founder and manager of AlzAuthors and is the author of Blue Hydrangeas, an Alzheimer’s love story. She’s also a registered nurse who has cared for hundreds of dementia patients and their families over her 20+ years career. In 2015...

Lauren Dykovitz knew nothing about Alzheimer’s when her mother was diagnosed at the age of 62. Just 25, with a new career and recently engaged, Lauren took a crash course in caregiving which changed her life, and eventually led her to candidly share her story on Facebook. This soon grew into the blog, Life, Love, and Alzheimer’s , which grew into the book, Learning to Weather the Storm: A Story of...

When Peter Berry was diagnosed with early onset Alzheimer’s at age 50, he took an early retirement from his job working in the family’s timber business. After the devastating diagnosis, he became depressed but, being a "glass half full" personality, battled through his depression and focused on his lifelong passion for cycling. He has used this passion to raise awareness of the condition, particul...

Paula Spencer Scott is a long-time journalist and health and family-life specialist focusing on self-care, eldercare, and baby care. She's the author of the bestseller “Surviving Alzheimer's: Practical Tips and Soul-Saving Wisdom for Caregivers” and the recently released “When Your Aging Parent Needs Help: A Geriatrician's Step-by-Step Guide to Memory Loss, Resistance, Safety Worries, & More” ...

Today’s guest is Susan Straley, author of the dual memoirs "Alzheimer's Trippin' with George" which memorialize her 10,000-mile cross-country trike trips after her husband’s dementia diagnosis.  When Susan and George semi-retired from their machine design and manufacturing business in Waukesha, Wisconsin in 2008, they moved all their belongings into storage except for what they needed for a long b...

When both of her parents were diagnosed with dementia, Vicki Tapia, a lactation consultant who had coached around 10,000 mother-baby pairs, found her energies redirected to the other end of life. A lifelong writer, she soon began journaling as an outlet for the stress and strain she encountered as their long-distance caregiver. Over time, this journal became a book-length work, a memoir detailing...

Today’s guest is Gerda Saunders, author of the mesmerizing memoir Memory’s Last Breath: Field Notes on My Dementia, in which she describes in great detail her descent into cerebral microvascular disease, a precursor to dementia. A gifted writer, she is also a woman of many talents and has had a remarkable career in higher education. She grew up in South Africa during apartheid, the child of a farm...

Daniel C. Potts, MD, FAAN is a neurologist, author, poet, educator, and champion of those living with Alzheimer's and other dementias and their care partners. His professional life collided with his personal in 2002, when his father, Lester, was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s. He soon found himself on his own dementia journey, and like many other care partners, became adrift in despair, confusion, gri...

Today’s guest is Florrie Munat, author of the memoir “Be Brave: A Wife’s Journey Through Caregiving,” in which she shares the story of caring for her husband, Chuck, during their 6-year ordeal with Lewy Body disease due to an ischemic stroke. "Be Brave" was selected as one of the Top 100 Indie Books of 2017 by Kirkus Reviews, who described it as, "A beautiful, richly panoramic book that should rea...

Today’s guest is Krysten Lindsay Hager, who writes funny, charming, irresistible dramas for tweens and teens. Her stories are about friendship, self-esteem, fitting in, frenemies, crushes, fame, first loves, and values. She also writes about dementia, especially Lewy Body, in the teen novels “Competing with the Star,” a Readers' Favorite Book Award Finalist, and “Dating the It Guy.” Krysten’s expe...

Jean Lee is a co-founder and director of AlzAuthors. and author of the brave, inspirational memoir "Alzheimer’s Daughter," written from a journal she kept during her years of caring for both parents diagnosed with Alzheimer's on the same day. At the time, she was working full-time as an elementary school teacher and took over their care. Throughout her caregiving years she experienced the heartbre...