Product Description

Offers a glimpse into the world of individuals living with Alzheimer's disease. The author, who was diagnosed at age 58, shares his account of his slow transformation and deterioration. Addresses complexity and emotions surrounding issues such as the loss of independence, unwanted personality shifts, struggle to communicate, and more. Softcover.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #79174 in Books
• Published on: 2006-12-31
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 224 pages

From the Back Cover
Thoughtful and self-reflective, this collection of illuminating essays offers a rare glimpse into the often incomprehensible world of individuals living with Alzheimer's disease. Diagnosed at age 58, psychologist Richard Taylor shares a provocative and courageous account of his slow transformation and deterioration, and of the growing divide between his reality and the reality of others.

With poignant clarity, candor, and humor, Taylor addresses the complexity and emotions surrounding issues such as the loss of independence and personhood, unwanted personality shifts, the struggle to communicate, changing relationships with loved ones and friends, continuous declines in ability to perform familiar tasks, and never-ending uncertainty about the future.

Alzheimer's from the Inside Out is a captivating read for anyone affected by this mind-robbing disease. Individuals with early-stage Alzheimer's disease will take comfort in the voice of a fellow traveler experiencing similar challenges, frustrations, and triumphs. Family and professional caregivers will be enlightened by Taylor's revealing words, gaining a better understanding of an unfathomable world and how best to care for someone living in it.

About the Author
Richard Taylor has lived for five years with a diagnosis of dementia probably of the Alzheimer's type. A former psychologist, he is now a champion for individuals with early-stage and early-onset Alzheimer's disease.

Richard served on the board of the Houston and Southeast Texas Alzheimer's Association and is now a member of a special committee of the National Alzheimer's Association looking at how to evaluate and provide effective support to individuals in the early stages of the disease. He has started over 50 chat rooms worldwide for people with Alzheimer's disease and their loved ones and he is also the editor of a quarterly newsletter for people with early-onset, early-stage Alzheimer's disease and their caregivers.

Originally Richard started writing essays to better understand for himself what was going on inside of him. He now writes to share his experiences with other individuals with the disease and their caregivers. His insights into himself and the disease are always honest, direct, poignant, and sometimes even witty. His essays have been published in Alzheimer's Care Quarterly.

Richard lives in Cypress, Texas with his spouse Linda and his Bouvier des Flandres dog, Annie. His son and family live across the street from him. He spends his days playing with his two grandchildren, gardening, and writing.

Excerpted from Alzheimer's from the Inside Out by Richard Taylor. Copyright © 2006. Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
What Is It Like to Have Alzheimer's Disease?

What is it like to drive your car from Houston to Anchorage?

The answer depends on many things: the type of car you will drive, the age of the car, how well you maintained it, where you are in your trip, if others are helping you with the drive, if you have enough gas or access to a gas credit card, if you have accepted the fact you must drive to Anchorage, whether or not you are afraid of arriving in Anchorage.

What is it like to have Alzheimer's?

This, too, depends on many things: Do you have an existing group of individuals who are committed to your well being? Are you a proactive or a reactive person when it comes to dealing with doctors, your health insurance company, and yourself? Where do you live: Houston, Texas, or Houston, Nigeria ? Do you have insurance? Especially long-term care insurance? Does your culture and economic class encourage and promote younger generations taking responsibility and care of their family's older generations? There are dozens of important factors outside of yourself that will directly and significantly influence you and your inner experiences with the disease.

After meeting, speaking, and corresponding with hundreds of people who have Alzheimer's, I am convinced there is no universal answer to the question, "What is it like to have Alzheimer's?"

Since the disease process unpredictably and seemingly randomly destroys various cognitive processes and undermines the basis of most all understanding and memory, each person has a unique and personal way of dealing with the rate, the degree, and the various components of the syndromes we attribute to Alzheimer's disease. Neurologists who tell us they understand the disease because they see 4 or 40, or 400, individuals with Alzheimer's does not mean they understand me or you. Just as there really is no single "average" person, there is no meaningful "average" Alzheimer's disease experience.

I was diagnosed with dementia of the Alzheimer's type two years before I wrote this piece. I imagined, maybe hoped, that some day I would wake up and a heavy velvet curtain would have fallen during the night. I would wake up to a world where I could see shapes but not enough details to know what or who they were, sort of like Plato's flickering shadows on the wall produced by the fire in the cave.

Instead, right now, I feel as if I am sitting in my grandmother's living room, looking at the world through her lace curtains. From time to time, a gentle wind blows the curtains and changes the patterns through which I see the world. There are large knots in the curtains and I cannot see through them. There is a web of lace connecting the knots to each other, around which I can sometimes see. However, this entire filter keeps shifting unpredictably in the wind. Sometimes I am clear in my vision and my memory, sometimes I am disconnected but aware of memories, and other times I am completely unaware of what lies on the other side of the knot. As the wind blows, it is increasingly frustrating to understand all that is going on around me, because access to the pieces and remembering what they mean keeps flickering on and off, on and off.

Thanks in large part to my family caregivers, I am still functioning in the non-Alzheimer's world. I drive, I learn (although I seem to forget much of what I learn), I teach, I love, I mostly understand--but not all the time, and not always the way others do. It is a constant effort to look around the lacy webs and to have to put effort into understanding and doing things that came naturally but a few months ago (cooking, reading, driving to a new store, remembering the recent past). Some activities hide beyond the knots and rarely have clarity (arithmetic, reading a watch, remembering what I just read). It is not a lot of fun, but I can still do it!

Does the disease increasingly dominate my life, or has the disease insidiously and largely unconsciously become a part of my life?

Does the chicken come first, who I am?

Does the egg come first, Alzheimer's disease?

Today, but not yesterday, I firmly believe: Individuals have a cold, have cancer, have the measles. Alzheimer's has the individual. Ask me again tomorrow!

I am trying to be rational and realistic, using tools that are rusting and increasingly out of sync with each other. In my writings you will feel me leaning one way in one paragraph (I am in a war with this disease and I will go down fighting. This is an opportunity for me to grow in ways few people have an opportunity to experience), or another way (I'm mad, I'm sad, and I feel sorry for myself. Why won't others join my self-pity party?).

My writings don't offer answers, just my own observations from my own increasingly unsure perspective.

Customer Reviews

Critical of Jesus, disturbing comparision!!
Right off the author critizes the writers of the New Testament. What does faith have to do with this book??? He puts down the Bible as contradicting. His book is only his perspective!!! I really did not like it at all.

ONCE
Fast service, great book from a first-person perspective, insightful and thought-provoking for those who have a friend or family member with this disease..

A must read if involved with Alzheimer's
Reading all the books I can find on this disease. This book was suggested as a must read at a Alzheimer's seminar. I am a caregiver trying to understand and care for my mother. This is a very informative book in the eyes of the person with Alzheimer's. Very eye opening for me. God Bless all who are dealing with this disease and those who love them and want the best for them. Thank you Mr. Taylor and may God Bless you and your family.