Published: September 19, 2013
The excellent Media Storm has posted this poignant, heartbreaking account of the Greer family and how they cope when Marilyn Greer is diagnosed with Frontotemporal dementia.
This is an honest account of the effect of this devastating diagnosis, and how one family copes.
The Greers grew up as a 3-woman unit. This mother-daughter team was nicknamed “The Greer Girls.”
When Marilyn is diagnosed with dementia at age 58, her daughters refocused their lives to care for her during her most precious years.
As Marilyn’s disease progresses, the girls struggle to care for a woman who is less and less like their mother. Together, they navigate the unknown while balancing their personal lives until they are forced to make a heartbreaking decision.
Published: September 19, 2013
Credits
Director of Photography: Rick Gershon
Producer: Caitlyn Greene
Additional Cinematography: Caitlyn Greene, Bret Curry
Associate Producer: Arkasha Stevenson
Graphics: Joe Fuller
Executive Producer: Brian Storm
The Alzheimer’s Association
Frontotemporal Dementia
The Association for Frontotemporal Degeneration
In this podcast, a story about obsession, creativity, and a strange symmetry between a biologist and a composer that revolves around one famously repetitive piece of music.
Anne Adams was a brilliant biologist. But when her son Alex was in a bad car accident, she decided to stay home to help him recover. And then, rather suddenly, she decided to quit science altogether and become a full-time artist. After that, her husband Robert Adams tells us, she just painted and painted and painted. First houses and buildings, then a series of paintings involving strawberries, and then … “Bolero.”
At some point, Anne became obsessed with Maurice Ravel’s famous composition and decided to put an elaborate visual rendition of the song to canvas. She called it “Unraveling Bolero.” But at the time, she had no idea that both she and Ravel would themselves unravel shortly after their experiences with this odd piece of music. Arbie Orenstein tells Jad what happened to Ravel after he wrote “Bolero,” and neurologist Bruce Miller andJonah Lehrer helps us understand how, for both Anne and Ravel, “Bolero” might have been the first symptom of a deadly disease.
ᔥRadiolab podcast
A powerful and moving video ~ Michael French has frontotemporal dementia, for which there is no treatment. As his condition deteriorated, his wife, Ruth, had to move him to a nursing home, where she spends most days.
New York Times
Published: November 16, 2010
Researchers have discovered why some people with dementia are compelled to massively overeat, opening the way for better diagnosis and the development of new treatments for the disease.
The research, led by Dr Olivier Piguet from Neuroscience Research Australia, shows for the first time that some people with frontotemporal dementia have deterioration in the brain region that controls hunger.
“We think the cells in this brain region lose the ability to tell these individuals when they’ve had enough to eat,” says Dr Piguet. [continue reading…]
