Dementia Quotes

“Affirmations are our mental vitamins, providing the supplementary positive thoughts we need to balance the barrage of negative events and thoughts we experience daily.”
― Tia Walker, The Inspired Caregiver: Finding Joy While Caring for Those You Love

“Of all ruins, that of a noble mind is the most deplorable.

- The Adventure of the Dying Detective”
― Arthur Conan Doyle, The Complete Sherlock Holmes

“Dementia was like a truth serum.”
― Amy Tan, The Bonesetter's Daughter

“Psychologist: "This, ah, is a new sort of, ah, psychopathology that we're only now beginning to, ah, understand. These, ah, super-serial killers have no, ah, 'type' but, ah, rather consider everyone to be their 'type.'"
Gramma: "Did you hear that? Your daddy's a superhero!”
― Barry Lyga, I Hunt Killers - Free Preview (The First 10 Chapters): with Bonus Prequel Short Story "Career Day"

“Een mens kan altijd een tijd lang kijken zonder te zien. Kijken kan Robert ook, maar het theebusje en de kaasschaaf herkennen niet. Hij kijkt zonder te zien, bedoel ik. Neem zelf de proef maar eens. Je drinkt altijd koffie van een bepaald merk en omdat dat in de drugstore opeens niet meer voorradig is, neem je een ander merk, een andere bus. Als je de volgende dag koffie wilt maken zoek je overal naar de koffiebus. Het herinneringsbeeld van de oude busis zo sterk dat hij de bus van het nieuwe merk, de aanwezige bus, vlak voor je neus op de keukenplank, onzichtbaar maakt. Om iets te zien moet je eerst iets kunnen herkennen. Zonder herinnering kun je alleen maar kijken. Dan glijdt de wereld spoorloos door je heen.”
― J. Bernlef, Hersenschimmen

“She almost thought she'd said the words aloud, but she hadn't. They remained trapped in her head, but not because they were barricaded by plaques and tangles. She just couldn't say them aloud”
― Lisa Genova, Still Alice

“The dominant narrative is a horror story. People with Alzheimer's are perceived as zombies, bodies without minds, waiting for valiant researchers to find a cure. For Alice and me, the story was different. Alzheimer's was a time of healing and magic. Of course, there is loss with dementia, but what matters is how we approach our losses and our gains. Reframing dementia as a different way of being, as a window into another reality, lets people living in that state be our teachers — useful, true humans who contribute to our collective good, instead of scary zombies.”
― Dana Walrath, Aliceheimer’s: Alzheimer’s Through the Looking Glass

“...I was thinking and thinking about how, in just the past year, I had just started to know her, but then I began to unknow her, getting farther and farther away like watching a boat drift from the shore and head out not to some other land but to an open water that never, never ends. And she did not even know this, that she was on the boat.

[Charles Lamosway, referring to Louise, his mother]”
― Morgan Talty, Fire Exit

“What a cruel side effect, to lose the scent of cookies in the over, the sweet fragrance of a meadow. Had I known...”
― Amy Neff, The Days I Loved You Most

“

BIDEN: “Look, folks,” the president told the adoring crowd after his wife handed him the microphone, “you know, there, uh — I shouldn’t say this, but my brother always uses lines from movies. There was a famous movie by John Wayne, and— and he’s working for the, uh, the Northern military, trying to get the Apaches back on the reservation, and they were lying like hell to him. And they’re all sitting on a bluff, and John Wayne was sitting with two Indian — they were, they were tr — Apaches. And one of them looked at John Wayne and said, ‘These guys are nothing but lying, dog-faced pony soldiers.’ ”

The crowd roared and laughed.
“Except, Trump’s just a liar,” Biden added.
No such line was ever said in any John Wayne movie.”
― Jake Tapper, Original Sin: President Biden's Decline, Its Cover-Up, and His Disastrous Choice to Run Again

“Then there was the Trumpiness of it all. A candidate just didn’t get a whole lot out of debating Trump. Even if you were beating his ass, you would lose part of your soul in that debate. Trump was such a pathological liar that it was hard for anyone to maintain the nature of what they imagined themselves to be. Trump always took you down with him.”
― Jake Tapper, Original Sin: President Biden's Decline, Its Cover-Up, and His Disastrous Choice to Run Again

“In this journey, it wasn’t her forgetting that broke me. It was the glimpses of her remembering.”
― Barb Drummond, I Finally Have the Smoking Hot Body I Have Always Wanted...: Having Been Cremated

“Former Chief Neurologist at Miriam Hospital, says Mellor's book "...offers a wealth of information for caregivers," while "the mixture of prose and poetry is refreshing.”
― Dr. Norman Gordon

“I'm in awe of people who deal with Alzheimer's, because they have to deal with death 10 times over, year after year.”
― Wolfelt PhD CT, Healing Your Grieving Heart When Someone You Care About Has Alzheimer's: 100 Practical Ideas for Families, Friends, and Caregivers (Healing Your Grieving Heart series) by Wolfelt PhD CT, Alan D., Duvall MD, Kirby J. (2011) Paperback

“When someone you love has dementia, you too experience a form of anticipatory grief, but yours may extend over a longer period of time (for some, as long as 20 years) and be socially unrecognized and surrounded by uncertainty.”
― Wolfelt PhD CT, Healing Your Grieving Heart When Someone You Care About Has Alzheimer's: 100 Practical Ideas for Families, Friends, and Caregivers (Healing Your Grieving Heart series) by Wolfelt PhD CT, Alan D., Duvall MD, Kirby J. (2011) Paperback

“While renovating her house, everyday she asked the same question. 'Who's paying for all that?' I said, 'You are so cheer up, you might have to go back to work.”
― Mark Steven Porro, A Cup of Tea on the Commode: My Multi-Tasking Adventures of Caring for Mom. And How I Survived to Tell the Tale

“Oh for a son
when my head is bowed
and years have lined my face –
A stalwart son
with a gentle heart,
where I still hold
a mother's place.

Oh, for a son
when eyes grow dim
and memories recede –
A spirited son,
a steadfast son,
who sees but does not
fear my need.”
― Susan Noyes Anderson, His Children

“If in my lifetime I lose my memories and all my love for you is stolen away, remind me of the times that I loved you when you were unlovable, the hours when I cried myself to sleep, the days I yearned for your love but was left empty-handed, the years that were hard, and the scars they left behind. If you remind me of the sorrow that I've felt loving you, then I may never remember the years we had together, but I will recognize the strength of our bond through the endurance of our trials.”
― Allene vanOirschot

“I wasn't sure Louise knew who I was anymore, but I was quite certain I was nobody. And as I sat there I felt myself slipping away to damp depths of sadness as I had done the night before, and I was thinking and thinking and thinking about how, in just the past year, I had just started to know her, but then I began to unknow her, getting farther and farther away like watching a boat drift from the shore and head out not to some other land but to an open water that never, ever ends. And she did not even know this, that she was on the boat.”
― Morgan Talty

“If Bea could no longer join Iona in her world, Iona could join Bea in hers.”
― Clare Pooley

“It's like a puzzle from the thrift store, there are pieces missing and no matter how much time and attention you give it, it will never be complete.”
― John Boden, Thrift Store Puzzles

“Grace knows the look on the woman's face. It's the way people look at her when her grip is failing, when she is slipping away. She knows that she has to hold on or she will lose her way, lose everything, but she can't be sure how to do it, how to hold on to herself and the people around her and the life that has made her.”
― Sean Wilson, You Must Remember This

“He sits, silent,
no longer mistaking the cable
news for company—

and when he talks, he talks of childhood,
remembering some slight or conundrum
as if it is a score to be retailed

and settled after seventy-five years.”
― Anthony Walton

“I keep apologizing for being, me, even when I am not myself.
I keep falling to pieces, even when I am not broken.
I keep forgetting all the moments that died in my memory.
I keep looking for anyone, but myself.
How do I keep myself from leaving me behind?”
― Jenim Dibie

“In 2017, The Journal Stroke, released a bombshell paper that revealed the risk for stroke, Alzheimer’s, & dementia in general among people who drank artificially sweetened drinks. What they found was quite remarkable. Participants who drank 1 or more artificially sweetened drinks per day had almost 3x the risk of stroke & 3x the risk of Alzheimer’s disease. Within the context of uric acid specifically; here’s what to keep in mind. It’s important to avoid anything that interferes with your body’s ability to break down & filter toxins & that includes sugar substitutes.”
― David Perlmutter, Drop Acid: The Surprising New Science of Uric Acid?The Key to Losing Weight, Controlling Blood Sugar, and Achieving Extraordinary Health, Hardcover

“In his moments of lucidity, which would later become increasingly rare and painful, he suggested an explanation of what was happening to him: “I am a guilty man. That is why I am being punished like Abuya's heretical sons, I gazed when I should not have gazed and turned my eyes away when I should not have. I saw a sin committed… a crime…I could have, I should have, done something, called out, shouted, struck a blow. I forgot our precepts, our laws, that require an individual to struggle against evil wherever it appears. I forgot that we can never simply remain spectators, we have no right to stand aside, to keep silent, to let the victim fight the aggressor alone. I forgot so many things that day…That is why I am forgetting other things now. Can there be anything worse than that?”

Yes, there was worse, there is worse: to forget that one has forgotten.”
― Elie Wiesel, The Forgotten

“How do you know if someone’s got dementia?... I ask the students to think about children. By the time they get to primary school most small children have learned to use a knife and fork, and can dress themselves and use the loo. Most people hang on to these basic abilities for a long while; these ‘primary-school skills’ are lost late. I ask the students to tell me instead what teenagers are learning. What are my own dear children, between fifteen and twenty-one, now getting the hang of? Phoning their friends and planning a social life. Driving and using public transport in strange cities. Deploying a richer, more elaborate vocabulary. Planning neals and cooking… managing their finances. Travelling, and telling us their stories when they return without repeating themselves.
The students can now see what skills may be lost earliest by those who are developing dementia. People who have learned several languages tend to lose them in reverse order… Long-term memory may be preserved, but what happened at lunchtime today is lost. Personalities may change, subtly at first – the placid may become anxious, or the irritable may develop a sunny outlook. Pg172-3”
― Lucy Pollock, The Book About Getting Older

“…the phenomenon of restlessness as the day comes to its end is called ‘sundowning’ and is familiar to those who live with or care for someone who has dementia. I think it is an atavistic behaviour; birds do it… and you can hear it from a field of sheep too, the crescendo bleating of lambs and ewes in the gathering dusk pg302”
― Lucy Pollock, The Golden Rule: Lessons in living from a doctor of ageing

“How's Mother?"

"In and out." As I said it I wondered which was the bad way: in or out? Was she lost when she was in her mind or out of it?”
― Percival Everett, Erasure

“To be unable to connect with your own past through the act of memory must feel like you were losing a connection to the building blocks of your very identity. If we are the sum of our experiences, what do we become when those experiences vanish from our mind? Do we ourselves eventually disappear?”
― D. Randall Blythe, Just Beyond the Light: Making Peace with the Wars Inside Our Head