By Dave Andrusko

After all this time I shouldn't be surprised how often my out-of-the-office life overlaps with the job I am so fortunate to have. We are starting an Alzheimer's support group at our church. You get to a certain age and, not surprisingly, many of the congregants that you lead in your adult Sunday school class are grappling with the difficulties that are part of life when one parent (or even both) show signs of beginning Alzheimer's.

I talked yesterday with the gentleman who will be doing most of the heavy lifting on this project. This morning I found that a friend had sent a link to an article that appeared over the weekend in the Guardian newspaper in England.

The headline is "Why Alzheimer's isn't the end of the world"
(www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2010/mar/13/alzheimers-john-zeisel/print). Written by Susanna Rustin it is a review of a book, "I'm still here :a breakthrough approach to understanding someone living with Alzheimer's," and an interview with the author, John Zeisel.

I would very much like you to read the review; I was so caught up with it that I reserved a copy of the book. Let me just make three quick remarks.

First, Zeisel understands that not everyone is equipped to deal with family with Alzheimer's. "Not everybody is up to the hard emotional work it takes to stay connected to somebody," he tells Rustin. But that doesn't stop him from trying to help those who can--and those who think they can't but could, if helped--understand dementia (the word is used almost as a synonym for Alzheimer's) in a new way.

Second, when it comes to the pro-euthanasia crowd, the "specter" of Alzheimer's operates like lighter fluid on charcoal. "He believes the media, egged on by pharmaceutical companies and fundraisers, have built up an appallingly negative view of Alzheimer's to the point where it is the illness we dread above all else," Rustin writes. "In the UK, the debate recently received a rocket boost when novelists Martin Amis and Terry Pratchett both jumped in: Pratchett, who has been diagnosed with early onset Alzheimer's, argued in favour of euthanasia tribunals, while Amis suggested booths on street corners to enable a 'population of demented very old people' to go quietly."

Third, Zeisel does not trivialize the difficulties of living with someone with Alzheimer's. But he refuses to indulge in the relentlessly morose attitude that dominates the conversation. There is gain, as well as loss.

"When he was growing up in Manhattan," Rustin writes, "Zeisel was used to the presence of his German-speaking grandfather, who was what was then described as senile, and later came to see this as a formative experience. 'It gave me the deep knowledge that even if you couldn't speak someone's language, you could still have a profound relationship,' he says. 'The openness I had as a child, to people and who they were, because I didn't know any better, is an openness I am gaining again thanks to my contact with people with dementia.""

You can buy the book on amazon.com. You can find Suzanna Rustin's fine interview at www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2010/mar/13/alzheimers-john-zeisel/print.

Please send your comments to daveandrusko@gmail.com.  Thank you!

Part Four
Part One
Part Two