Protecting My Memory: Dementia Prevention Stories

Inside this volume

Fifty first-person accounts describe what people did once they began to worry about dementia, for their families or for themselves. Many watched a mother, father or brother live with Alzheimer's; others were prompted by a heart attack, a watch that flagged a heart problem, or twenty minutes in which a hand would not hold a teacup. The writers include a Cork publican who drank too much, a football coach and former lineman worried about knocks to the head, a care assistant of eleven years on a dementia ward, a noodle-stall owner who joined a tai chi group at seventy, and a Wichita farmer walking mall laps at eighty-two, from Pune and Lagos to Berlin and rural Montana. The changes are mostly ordinary: hearing aids, blood pressure checks, stopping smoking, a sleep mask for snoring, statins argued over, cataracts seen to, slow weight loss, Spanish lessons, piano, choir, salsa, night classes and a pharmacist reviewing a sleeping tablet. Some found their forgetfulness had another cause, in their blood or an overloaded life, and one memory clinic told a worried joiner he was fine. The book is honest about limits: brain training apps and nearly two thousand dollars of supplements did little for those who tried them, and several writers point out that some people do everything right and are affected anyway.

Who it's for

For anyone who has watched a parent or sibling live with dementia and wonders what is within their own reach, and for people who want to see how ordinary those first steps can be.

Format · Instant download · PDF & EPUB · Fifty first-person accounts · PDF: 281 pages

A collection of personal testimony, offered as companion reading — not medical advice.

• 50 single-author testimonies from real people
• A short, plain-language introduction to the topic
• Editor's note, contents page, and curated resource list
• Professional interior typesetting and an original cover

Every purchase includes a print-quality PDF (best for desktop, tablet, and printing) and a reflowable EPUB (best for Kindle, Apple Books, Kobo, and phones). Files are DRM-free. You can download both instantly from the order-confirmation screen, and we email them to your inbox as well, so your books are always within reach.