Dementia and Caregivers
Books for those caring for or living with dementia.
June 29, 2023
In this list: Caregiving and Treatment | Personal Stories | Family Stories | Genetic Inheritance | Science and History | Fiction
Caregiving and Treatment
The Dementia Caregiver
A Guide To Caring For Someone With Alzheimer’s Disease And Other Neurocognitive Disorders
Marc E Agronin
Alzheimer’s and related forms of dementia are on the rise, and the need for competent caregivers will grow alongside the increased rates of diagnoses. This book focuses on what caregivers need to know to help manage the medical, physical, emotional, and practical needs of their charges, as well as themselves.
Creative Care
A Revolutionary Approach To Dementia And Elder Care
Anne Basting
A MacArthur Genius Grant recipient pioneers a radical change in how we interact with older loved ones, especially those experiencing dementia, as she introduces a proven method that uses the creative arts to bring light and joy to the lives of elders.
Caregiving With Love And Joy
An Expert’s Guide To Providing The Best Alzheimer’s Disease And Dementia Homecare
Patricia A Boswell
A licensed practical nurse (LPN) and dementia expert shares structured routines, life hacks and evidence-based best practices for people caring for a loved one with Alzheimer’s in an effort to improve the lives of both the patient and caregiver.
The End Of Alzheimer’s Program
The First Protocol To Enhance Cognition And Reverse Decline At Any Age
Dale E Bredesen
The New York Times best-selling author of The End of Alzheimer’s lays out a specific plan to help everyone prevent and reverse cognitive decline or simply maximize brainpower.
The Ultimate Mind Diet Cookbook
100 Recipes To Help Prevent Alzheimer’s And Dementia
Amanda Foote
Food is a powerful tool that can keep your mind sharp and healthy. The Ultimate MIND Diet Cookbook offers 100 science-backed recipes to help prevent Alzheimer’s and dementia. From Strawberry-Spinach Salad to Chicken-Quinoa Stew over Sweet Potatoes, these delicious recipes will transform your kitchen into a delicious, brain-charging mind diet meal machine.
The Spectrum Of Hope
An Optimistic And New Approach To Alzheimer’s Disease And Other Dementias
Gayatri Devi
The neurologist and Director of the New York Memory and Healthy Aging Services redefines Alzheimer’s as a spectrum disorder and offers hope and advice to both those diagnosed and their family members for maintaining dignity, independence and continuing to live fulfilling lives.
Defeating Dementia
What You Can Do To Prevent Alzheimer’s And Other Forms Of Dementia
Richard Furman
Drawing from the latest medical research, Dr. Richard Furman helps readers understand dementia and Alzheimer’s and shows them how to make lifestyle changes that can reduce the likelihood of developing these diseases.
Remember
The Science Of Memory And The Art Of Forgetting
Lisa Genova
The Harvard-trained neuroscientist and best-selling author of Still Alice presents an exploration of the intricacies of human memory that distinguishes between normal and concerning memory loss while explaining the profound roles of sleep, stress and other contributing influences.
The Last Ocean
A Journey Through Memory And Forgetting
Nicci Gerrard
The award-winning journalist and coauthor of the Nicci French best-sellers presents a lyrical, humane investigation into dementia that explores the journeys of both patients and their loved ones, exposing misguided protocols that contribute to unnecessary end-of-life pain.
The Problem Of Alzheimer’s
How Science, Culture, And Politics Turned A Rare Disease Into A Crisis And What We Can Do About It
Jason Karlawish
Traces Alzheimer’s from its beginnings to its recognition as a crisis and discusses biomedical breakthroughs that may be used to prevent and treat the disease so that people with dementia and caregivers alike can reclaim their autonomy.
Memory Activity Book
Engaging Ways To Stimulate The Brain, For People Living With Memory Loss Or Dementia
Helen Lambert
Designed for people with memory loss or dementia along with their family, friends and caregivers, a helpful resource is filled with activities that are accompanied by step-by-step instructions, the specific benefits, and ways to adapt the activity for different abilities.
Living In The Moment
Overcoming Challenges And Finding Moments Of Joy In Alzheimer’s Disease And Other Dementias
Elizabeth Landsverk
A loved one’s dementia diagnosis can leave you feeling scared and overwhelmed. Now a renowned geriatrician who has helped thousands of families live happy, engaged lives–after a dementia diagnosis–shares her expertise in this easy-to-follow guide.
The 36-Hour Day
A Family Guide To Caring For People Who Have Alzheimer Disease And Other Dementias
Nancy L Mace, Peter V Rabins
Written by experts with decades of experience caring for individuals with memory loss, Alzheimer’s, and other dementias, the book is widely known for its authoritativeness and compassionate approach to care. Featuring everything from the causes of dementia to managing its early stages to advice on caring for those in the later stages of the disease, it is widely considered to be the most detailed and trusted book available.
Caring For A Loved One With Dementia
A Mindfulness-Based Guide For Reducing Stress And Making The Best Of Your Journey Together
Marguerite Manteau-Rao
A unique and compassionate guide offers an effective mindfulness-based dementia care (MBDC) program to help caregivers meet their own needs and lower stress levels while caring for their loved ones.
Dementia Reimagined
Building A Life Of Joy And Dignity From Beginning To End
Tia Powell
A leading psychiatrist and bioethicist draws on historical research, family experiences, and the latest focus on Alzheimer’s in a cultural and medical history of dementia that urgently calls for a return to care-oriented approaches.
What If It’s Not Alzheimer’s?
A Caregiver’s Guide To Dementia
Gary Radin, Lisa Radin
Although the public most often associates dementia with Alzheimer’s disease, the medical profession continues to advance distinctions of various types of ‘other’ dementias. What If It’s Not Alzheimer’s? is the first and remains the only comprehensive guide dealing with frontotemporal degeneration (FTD), the most common form of dementia for people under 60 years of age. This thoroughly updated edition offers new daily-care ideas for caregivers to implement, further describes how genes and proteins are linked to the causes of dementia, explores nonpharmacological and palliative approaches to managing care, provides more in-depth disease progression facts, provides new resources and guidance to aid caregivers along this challenging journey, and includes essays written by people living with the disease.
The 30-Day Alzheimer’s Solution
The Definitive Food And Lifestyle Guide To Preventing Cognitive Decline
Dean Sherzai, Ayesha Sherzai
The first 30-Day nutrition plan for preventing and reversing the symptoms of Alzheimer’s disease, dementia, and cognitive decline from Co-Directors of the Alzheimer’s Prevention Program at Loma Linda University Medical Center.
The Alzheimer’s Solution
A Breakthrough Program To Prevent And Reverse The Symptoms Of Cognitive Decline At Every Age
Dean Sherzai, Ayesha Sherzai
A revolutionary, proven program for reversing the symptoms of Alzheimer’s disease and cognitive decline from award winning neurologists and codirectors of the Brain Health and Alzheimer’s Prevention Program at Loma Linda University Medical Center.
The Small Guide To Alzheimer’s Disease
Gary Small, Gigi Vorgan
Drawing on cutting edge science as well as the latest prevention and treatment strategies, a New York Times best-selling author and expert on neuroscience, memory, Alzheimer’s Disease and dementia provides a comprehensive overview of Alzheimer’s Disease, dementia and related disorders.
A Loving Approach To Dementia Care
Making Meaningful Connections While Caregiving
Laura Wayman
Caring for someone with dementia means devotedly and patiently doing a hundred little things each day. But few care providers are trained to meet the challenges of dementia—despite the fact that millions of people will struggle with it as they grow older. In A Loving Approach to Dementia Care, Laura Wayman, who is known professionally as the Dementia Whisperer, offers practical, compassionate advice on overcoming caregiving obstacles and maintaining meaningful relationships with loved ones who have dementia and memory loss.
Self-Care For Caregivers
A Practical Guide To Caring For You While You Care For Your Loved One
Susanne White
It’s been said that there are only four kinds of people in the world: those who have been caregivers, those who are currently caregivers, those who will become caregivers, and those who will need caregivers. Chances are you or someone you know is taking care of a loved one at home. If you do, you also know that caregiving—however fulfilling—is also hard on the caregiver’s mental and physical health. Self-care is vital to caregivers maintaining stamina and a positive outlook for both themselves and the people they care for. But being so busy caring for others can make it hard to find time for yourself.
Personal Stories
Somebody I Used To Know
A Memoir
Wendy Mitchell
A memoir by a former British National Heath Service employee and single parent describes her battles with early onset Alzheimer’s, the management techniques she has developed to maintain her independence, and her efforts to make sense of her shifting world.
Memory’s Last Breath
Field Notes On My Dementia
Gerda Saunders
A former literature professor offers an unsparing account of her life with dementia and what it is like to be an intellectual person who is aware of her irreversible cognitive decline.
Family Stories
In Love
A Memoir Of Love And Loss
Amy Bloom
The New York Times best-selling author tells the story of her husband’s battle with early onset Alzheimer’s, their determination to support one another and his eventual decision to end his own life with dignity.
Floating In The Deep End
How Caregivers Can See Beyond Alzheimer’s
Patti Davis
With the heartfelt prose of a loving daughter, Patti Davis provides a life raft for the caregivers of Alzheimer’s patients.
Keeper
One House, Three Generations, And A Journey Into Alzheimer’s
Andrea Gillies
Five years ago, Andrea Gillies— writer, wife, and mother of three—seeing that her husband’s parents were struggling to cope, invited them to move in. She and her newly extended family relocated to a big Victorian house on a remote, windswept peninsula in the far north of Scotland, leaving behind their friends and all that was familiar; hoping to find a new life, and new inspiration for work. Her mother-in-law Nancy was in the middle stages of Alzheimer’s Disease, and Keeper charts her journey into dementia, its impact on her personality and her family, and the author’s researches into what dementia is.
The Seasons Of My Mother
A Memoir Of Love, Family, And Flowers
Marcia Gay Harden
A lyrical, uplifting memoir by the Academy- and Tony Award-winning actress traces the story of her childhood and career while using the imagery of flowers and the art of Ikebana as metaphors to represent the unique creative bond she shares with her mother, who has been succumbing in recent years to Alzheimer’s.
The Theft Of Memory
Losing My Father, One Day At A Time
Jonathan Kozol
A deeply personal account of the life of the author’s father—a nationally renowned neurologist who, after a life of helping to establish emerging fields in mental health, succumbed to Alzheimer’s disease.
The Memory Of All That
A Love Story About Alzheimer’s
Mary MacCracken
Deeply in love, Cal and Mary brave divorce, marry, and help each other succeed in their work. Cal becomes a renowned inventor, Mary a best-selling author. Then Alzheimer’s strikes. Cal faces his disease courageously, Mary finds ways to sustain their relationship despite it. While they don’t beat Alzheimer’s, it doesn’t win either. Their love persists throughout and beyond their battle.
Love In The Land Of Dementia
Finding Hope In The Caregiver’s Journey
Deborah Shouse
For many families, a diagnosis of dementia is an ending. For Deborah Shouse, it was a beginning, ‘My mother taught me how to celebrate and appreciate what we have right now.’ Through her mother’s dementia, Deborah discovered compassion, deepening love, and increased connection with her mother and her family. Love in the Land of Dementia offers hope to family members, friends, and care partners of people who are living with memory loss. Strong, fluid organization and tender writing distinguish this purposeful and compelling read, which is filled with practical suggestions, compassionate support, and unexpected insights.
Before I Forget
Love, Hope, Help, And Acceptance In Our Fight Against Alzheimer’s
B Smith, Dan Gasby
A restaurateur, magazine publisher, celebrity chef and nationally known lifestyle maven shares her experiences with her husband’s Alzheimer’s, in an uplifting account that doubles as a love story and provides practical and helpful advice for dealing with the day-to-day challenges of this disease.
The Last Of His Mind
A Year In The Shadow Of Alzheimer’s
John Thorndike
Five million Americans suffer from Alzheimer’s, and like many of them, Joe Thorndike’s one great desire was to remain in his own house. To honor his wish, his son John left his own home and moved into his father’s upstairs bedroom on Cape Cod. For a year, in a house filled with file cabinets, photos, and letters, John explored his father’s mind, his parents’ divorce, and his mother’s secrets. The Last of His Mind is the bittersweet account of a son’s final year with his father, and a candid portrait of an implacable disease.
All Gone
A Memoir Of My Mother’s Dementia: With Refreshments
Alex Witchel
At just past seventy, Alex Witchel’s smart, adoring, ultra-capable mother began to exhibit undeniable signs of dementia. Witchel reacted as she’d been raised: If something was broken, she would fix it. But as medical reality undid that hope, she retreated to the kitchen, trying to reclaim the mother who was disappearing in plain sight, by cooking the comforting foods that were her mother’s signature.
Genetic Inheritance
The Inheritance
A Family On The Front Lines Of The Battle Against Alzheimer’s Disease
Niki Kapsambelis
The DeMoe family has the most devastating form of the disease that there is: early onset Alzheimer’s, an inherited genetic mutation that causes the disease in 100 percent of cases, and has a 50 percent chance of being passed onto the next generation. Of the six DeMoe children whose father had it, five have inherited the gene; the sixth, Karla, has inherited responsibility for all of them. But rather than give up in the face of such news, the DeMoes have agreed to spend their precious, abbreviated years as part of a worldwide study that could utterly change the landscape of Alzheimer’s research and offers the brightest hope for future treatments’and possibly a cure.
Fighting For My Life
How To Thrive In The Shadow Of Alzheimer’s
Jamie TenNapel Tyrone, Marwan Noel Sabbagh
Diagnosed with a 91 percent risk of developing Alzheimer’s disease because of her genes, retired nurse Jamie Tyrone has teamed up with Dr. Marwan Sabbagh, a leading neurologist, to create a clear, helpful guide for exploring the risks of genetic testing and for living productively in the shadow of Alzheimer’s.
Science and History
The End Of Memory
A Natural History Of Aging And Alzheimer’s
Jay Ingram
In The End of Memory, award-winning science author Jay Ingram writes a biography of this disease that attacks the brains of patients. He charts the history of the disease from before it was noted by Alois Alzheimer through to the twenty-first century, explains the fascinating science of plaques and tangles, recounts the efforts to understand and combat the disease, and introduces us to the passionate researchers who are working to find a cure.
Fiction
And Every Morning The Way Home Gets Longer And Longer
Fredrik Backman
From the New York Times best-selling author of A Man Called Ove comes a portrait of an elderly man’s struggle to hold on to his most precious memories, and his family’s efforts to care for him even as they must find a way to let go.
Still Alice
Lisa Genova
Feeling at the top of her game when she is suddenly diagnosed with early onset Alzheimer’s disease, Harvard psychologist Alice Howland struggles to find meaning and purpose in her life as her concept of self gradually slips away.
Elizabeth Is Missing
Emma Healey
When Maud, an aging grandmother who is slowly losing her memory, is convinced that her best friend Elizabeth is missing and in terrible danger, she becomes obsessed with saving her beloved friend despite the fact that no one—not even her daughter, the police and Elizabeth’s son— believe her.
The Lost Ticket
Freya Sampson
Arriving in London, brokenhearted Libby Nichols meets elderly Frank who has been riding the bus for 60 years, hoping to find a girl he met in 1962, and decides to help him search, finding her tightly controlled world expanding as she opens her heart to new friendships and romance.