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- Alzheimer's: Losing a Mind
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- WHYY
Many experts warm that as baby boomers age, Alzheimer's disease will reach epidemic proportions. Right now, about 4.5 million Americans are diagnosed with Alzheimer's. In the early stages, the effects on memory are often mild, but as the mind deteriorates, relatives find their loves ones become helpless and disoriented. The host of WHYY's "Voices in the Family," Dan Gottlieb, talks to people suffering from Alzheimer's and their families. The show explores the latest research and hopes for a cure, options for care and support for caregivers.
Guests include:
Families and staff at the Lawrence Park Adult Day Services in Broomall, Pa.
Betsy Arledge, producer of the PBS documentary "The Forgetting."
David Shenk, author of "The Forgetting."
Don Kurtz and Roz Ruby,a couple affected by early-stage Alzheimer's disease.
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Piece Description
Many experts warm that as baby boomers age, Alzheimer's disease will reach epidemic proportions. Right now, about 4.5 million Americans are diagnosed with Alzheimer's. In the early stages, the effects on memory are often mild, but as the mind deteriorates, relatives find their loves ones become helpless and disoriented. The host of WHYY's "Voices in the Family," Dan Gottlieb, talks to people suffering from Alzheimer's and their families. The show explores the latest research and hopes for a cure, options for care and support for caregivers. Guests include: Families and staff at the Lawrence Park Adult Day Services in Broomall, Pa. Betsy Arledge, producer of the PBS documentary "The Forgetting." David Shenk, author of "The Forgetting." Don Kurtz and Roz Ruby,a couple affected by early-stage Alzheimer's disease.
2 Comments
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Review of Alzheimer's: Losing a Mind
Somewhere on PRX we need to allow for docs with windows for the news. I mention this here because 60 secs. into this story, where we are just getting to meet our host, we are then thrown not exactly into a tangent but somewhat off direction by essentially a news magazine-like story on Alzheimer's.
The host, new to my ears, is pleasant enough to hear. The writing is good. What is lacking here for me is the sheer hard edge of fact. We tend to use words like "epidemic" unquestioningly; "lots of money" cited early on is obtuse (how much, for example, is the government devoting to Alzheimer's research?). It's hard not to be sympathetic to any Alzheimer's story, but when the purpose is to call to arms, it is more important still to equip us with knowledge, not pleasant sensibility. |
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Posted on February 06, 2004 at 10:23 AM | Permalink
Review of Alzheimer's: Losing a Mind
Part one is a mix of authoritative interviews, the most gripping of course is a close encounter with Alzheimer's ( a Mother and daughter), but really there was only the one subject. There were some odd production choices, embedding a relevent piece with no segues where breaks for news and id's would be. The second part on diagnosing early Alzheimer's feels a little alarmist and unscientific - using one example of early diagnosis which could quite feasibly turn out to be wrong ! As we are told, even full-blown Alzheimer's cannot ever be 100% diagnosed without autopsy. So the focus was a puzzling choice. A fair portion of the content was an interview with David Shenk author of The Forgetting - his research is extensive and he is considered now an authority. But I sometimes felt some of his pronouncements a little irresponsible.
We are all living longer, there are many more cases of varying types of senility, early and otherwise. People are so very much more vulnerable to and desperate for any kind of information about Alzheimer's, and I left this piece feeling it somewhat alarmist.
In spite of this, there were many engaging moments. A particularly moving theme was about the caretakers, the syndromes of their stress and the wear of heartbreak.
vm