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A Rare View into the Unknown Realms of Alzheimer's Disease

Baltimore, MD (October 2009)—Often portrayed as a "living death," Alzheimer's disease is a growing concern for America's aging population. The fear of an Alzheimer's diagnosis is outstripping that of cancer among baby boomers. This mind-robbing disease demonstrates the truth of the maxim “we fear that which we do not understand." But a new book helps to put some of that fear to rest. Speaking Our Minds: What It’s Like to Have Alzheimer's, Revised Edition, helps to demystify this poorly understood disease by providing invaluable insight into the lives, hearts, and minds of the very people who are most affected – those who have it.

Drawing upon her vast knowledge from dealing with individuals with Alzheimer's and their families for nearly 20 years, dementia expert Lisa Snyder presents intimate interviews she conducted with diverse individuals with the disease. Through their own words and circumstances, and Snyder's sensitive commentary, revealing pictures emerge of the lives of people with dementia. What do they want? What do they fear? In what ways do they cope? How can others help?

Too often, loved ones and professionals assume the role of knowing what's best for someone with dementia when they think the person can no longer think for him- or herself. Snyder’s book reveals how mistaken this perception is. "Without the personal reflections of the people with Alzheimer’s themselves," writes Snyder, "there are missing pages in the text of our understanding – the pages that tell us what it is like to have this condition, to feel it day to day, to cope with its impact." Her work teaches us that one of the most important things we can do for people with Alzheimer's disease is to listen to them and to remember that, inside, they are the same people they have always been, no matter how much of them the disease seems to consume.

Lisa Genova, popular author of the best-selling book Still Alice, comments, "After years of thinking, reading, writing, and speaking about Alzheimer's, I’m convinced that the best way to understand what it feels like to have Alzheimer’s disease is to listen to the true experts – people with Alzheimer's. In Speaking Our Minds…their stories are moving, insightful, inspiring, and above all, memorable."

This book has the power to transform the way we look at Alzheimer’s and how we interact with those who have it. Many valuable lessons await those who put aside misconceptions and take the time to listen.

Lisa Snyder is a clinical social worker and Director of the Quality of Life Programs for the Shiley-Marcos Alzheimer’s Disease Research Center at the University of California, San Diego where she has counseled people with Alzheimer’s and their families since 1987.