‘Dementia Reimagined’ Asks: Can There Be Happiness For Those With Memory Loss?

TERRY GROSS, HOST: This is FRESH AIR. I’m Terry Gross. There’s no cure for dementia, and there’s unlikely to be one in the foreseeable future, which is why my guest, Dr. Tia Powell, is focusing on questions like, how can we devise a viable strategy to pay for long-term care? How do we preserve dignity? How do we balance freedom and safety? What is a good death for someone with dementia? And how do we help people who are losing their memory find some joy? Powell is the author of the new book "Dementia Reimagined." She is the director of the Montefiore Einstein Center for Bioethics and is a professor of psychiatry and bioethics at Albert Einstein College of Medicine. Some of her knowledge about dementia comes from having taken care of her mother when she had dementia. Powell’s grandmother had dementia, too. Dr. Tia Powell, welcome to FRESH AIR. There is a story in your book that you tell about when your mother was taking care of your grandmother, and your grandmother had dementia. And I want you to tell this story to our listeners. It’s a story about how your mother takes your grandmother outside on a beautiful day, seats her in a comfortable chair with an afghan covering her. Tell us the story. TIA POWELL: So my mother got my grandmother out onto the porch, which was pretty difficult. She was really at the end stages of dementia and couldn’t move easily. But my mother got her out there and put her in an easy chair and put her feet up and tucked in, around my grandmother’s legs, an afghan that my grandmother herself had crocheted many, many years before, when she’d been able to do that kind of thing. And after all this effort, she […]

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