Alzheimer's Disease and Dementia

In comparison to cancer, heart disease, and AIDS, Alzheimer's disease greatly lags in research funding, media attention, and celebrity support. Examines the personal and societal implications of this discrepancy, profiling families living with Alzheimer's, interviewing the doctors on the front lines, and scrutinizing the latest research.

The best way to understand the emotional impact of Alzheimer’s disease is to watch one family cope with it. This video introduces viewers to the Cifarelli family, depicting the painful process of losing a husband and father to the disease. Dr. Cifarelli’s sons struggle to reach him across the void of his memory and speech loss, dealing with his transformation in different ways—Nico, who was 12 when the disease set in, has shut down emotionally, while Shan, too young to remember his father any other way, grieves openly as the end nears. With their mother, Georgeanne, they recall happier times and, through the family bonds that still exist, search for ways to move on.

This dynamic video offers insight, hope, and understanding for anyone who cares for a loved one with Alzheimer's. This disease without cure currently afflicts more than 30 million people and there are no treatments to halt its progression, making caregiving both essential-and difficult.

Anger, physical resistance, swearing, hallucinations, and sexually undesired or surprising actions are just a few examples of the challenging situations that can occur when a person is living with dementia. As a care provider, any of these behaviors can leave you feeling distressed, hurt, embarrassed, and unappreciated. -container

A documentary film with a radically different perspective on Alzheimer's disease-- one of hope, the hope that in the midst of all that is lost with Dementia, much awaits to be found. Includes interviews with Naomi Feil (founder Validation), Michael Verde (Memory Bridge), Stanley Hauerwas (theologian), Rom Harré (psychologist) and Lisa Snyder (social worker).

"The first documentary filmed in an Alzheimer's unit told from the perspective of an Alzheimer's patient. In Danville, California, Lee Gorewitz wanders on a personal odyssey through her Alzheimer's & Dementia care unit. From the moment she wakes up, Lee is on a quest-- for reminders of her past, and her identity. A total immersion into the fragmented day-to-day experience of mental illness, 'You're looking at me like I live here and I don't' is filled with charismatic vitality and penetrating ruminations that challenge our preconceptions of illness and aging. Here is one extraordinary woman who will not let us forget her, even as she struggles to remember herself."--Container.