After a dementia diagnosis, it's important to plan ahead but also savor the moment

The goal of good dementia care is to preserve a patient's quality of life as the incurable disease progresses, maximizing their ability to lead normal lives and maintain their health and dignity. Dementia villages are small neighborhoods built for people with severe dementia, with typical neighborhood haunts like salons or grocery stores staffed by people trained in dementia care, helping residents maintain a sense of autonomy and connection.

Memory loss associated with progressive dementia raises questions about whether a person's identity can be maintained during the disease's progression. One outlook suggests we define ourselves by our social relationships—offering a potentially more humane approach to caring for those with dementia.

This 2025 PBS documentary provides a window into the experiences of three families navigating the struggles and beauty of caregiving for a loved one with Alzheimer's.

Comprehensive dementia care programs go beyond offering support to caregivers. They train people on how to modify their homes, communicate with their loved ones with dementia, and cope with the stress of caregiving, among other skills. Yet despite evidence showing their effectiveness and the economic benefit of avoiding unnecessary emergency room visits, these programs are often poorly funded and difficult to find.

Caregivers, most often children and spouses, do not just witness a family member's cognitive decline—they also often become drawn into it, navigating a world in which the typical rules of time, order, or logical continuity may not apply.

Alzheimer's is a deadly disease that profoundly changes a person's abilities and personality, which makes it difficult to explain to kids. Responding to potentially uncomfortable questions with honesty (and relatable imagery) about the costs and nature of the disease goes a long way in fostering understanding.

Kitty Eisele's 81-year-old dad went missing while on a snowy, four-hour drive from Minneapolis to Iowa City. It was the first emergency that spelled out the danger of her dad's dementia diagnosis—and captures how Alzheimer's impacts entire families, with the influx of responsibility that comes with caregiving.

This narrative feature describes one family's troubling experience with frontotemporal dementia, or FTD, which emerges in the prime of adult life — as young as 40, in some cases — and degrades the brain's ability to plan, organize, express language, understand social cues, and exercise judgment.

That figure, calculated by researchers at the University of Southern California, includes medical and long-term care costs, unpaid family and friend caretaking, lost productivity for patients and their families, and the economic loss in quality of life for patients and their families. In 2025, they estimate there were 5.6 million people living with dementia.

News program 60 Minutes interviewed a couple navigating aging and Alzheimer's over a 10-year period to illustrate the effects of the disease on their lives.

Although Alzheimer's disease is sometimes thought of synonymously with dementia, there are multiple types of dementia, which manifest in memory loss and other symptoms that make it challenging to perform daily tasks. These types include Lewy Body dementia, vascular dementia, and frontotemporal dementia. Parkinson's disease is not a form of dementia, but this movement disorder can sometimes develop into issues with memory and a formal diagnosis of dementia.

Research published in 2026 that tracked almost 2,000 older adults for an average of nearly eight years suggests that lifelong exposure to intellectual stimulation, such as learning a language, reading, and writing, can lower dementia risk by as much as 40%.

Read this primer about Alzheimer's disease and learn what factors increase the risk of this form of dementia, including genetics, being a woman, and health conditions, including high blood pressure.

This article offers tips for keeping yourself organized, such as the list of documents your family may need and suggestions for where to keep the files, both digital and physical.

Managing an employee with a terminal illness might be a reality at some point, requiring a balance of compassion and strategic action. This article provides tips for best practices on managing the situation, such as adapting the work environment to the employee's needs (think: giving them flexible hours or the option to work remotely), involving them in decisions about any adjustments to their role, and more. Find out other things to consider here.

Having Alzheimer's is a bit like having a part of your brain sliced away each day, according to author Greg O'Brien. This 34-minute podcast episode introduces O'Brien and his co-host, author David Shenk, as the two embark on a multi-season conversation on Alzheimer's disease and O'Brien's diagnosis.

The understanding that comes from meeting others who have similar experiences can provide hope that life can get better, the solace of affirmation, and make navigating a new diagnosis or a rare illness, in particular, much easier.

Mild cognitive impairment is a condition in which people experience more thinking and memory problems than expected for their age. It's often associated with depression and anxiety. Daily routines, writing things down, and healthy lifestyle choices can help cope with the condition, but there's no cure. The condition elevates the risk of developing dementia and Alzheimer's.

An estimated 4.3 million people aged 55 or older who have cognitive impairment or dementia live alone in the US. The individuals facing these challenges are more likely to be women, people of color, and to generally be poorer and less educated than other older adults who are also living alone.

Navigating a cancer diagnosis can be terrifying and overwhelming. There is a robust community of patient advocates dedicated to prevention and diagnosis, research and clinical trials, legislation, needs of individual cancer types, among others. See how patient advocacy improves cancer research leading to improved treatment options and patient care.

All-consuming anticipatory grief—like if you know a loved one will soon die from a chronic illness—can be disabling. Seeking exercise, healthy food, hobbies, and trying to toggle between thinking about an upcoming loss and focusing on other matters is important for promoting health.

Shifting perspectives toward the increasing importance of digital profiles of the dead have made anticipatory management of one's digital legacy more critical. Experts suggest choosing a tech-savvy relative—such as a cousin—over a spouse to reduce confusion about what to preserve or discard, as well as how to access password-protected content.

In this podcast episode, a financial expert outlines how to prepare to financially take care of an elderly parent before they get sick or an emergency happens. This includes ensuring their payments are automated, getting access codes for their cell phones and accounts, and more.

Significant changes in personality later in life are often attributed to psychological factors. But Dr. Bruce Miller, long-time researcher of FTD, argues this shift is most often attributable to changes in the brain.

This video series features patients discussing their experiences with the disorder, family members describing caregiving, and other insights about the disease.

This first-person account of a woman diagnosed with autism at age 31 covers her experience of why it was useful for her to receive her diagnosis as an adult and how it helped her to understand her life and her feelings of 'being an imposter.'

Shirley Hodes, 106, and her sister Ruth Sweedler, 103, don’t routinely do crossword puzzles, but both have stayed sharp as they aged. Though they live states apart, they share similar advice for maintaining mental acuity. They sum up their strategies for cognitive health with four verbs: work, connect, learn, and appreciate. Read this article to learn more about their approach to staying 100-plus years young.

Early-onset Alzheimer’s typically emerges around 40 to 50 years of age, with devastating effects. This video follows Brian, diagnosed with the disease at age 54, as he travels the country as an advocate for research and discusses the progressive mental fog of Alzheimer’s.

Surveys suggest our fear of Alzheimer's as a disease outranks that of heart disease and cancer. This piece argues our fear of aging and the slipping away of our mental capacities make it more difficult to treat Alzheimer's compassionately.

Individuals experiencing grief may find comfort through counseling, online support groups, support books, and activities like volunteering. Each of these resources can help individuals build a community or new daily patterns when navigating intense anguish.

Major depressive disorder is a clinical diagnosis and is not a lifestyle choice. Those who struggle with depression can express persistent feelings that are difficult to process and make sense of for friends and family. This guide walks through some counterintuitive perspectives, including resisting the urge to force a depressed person to do the things that would make them feel better.

Described as having therapy with someone who knows you well, documenting one's thoughts and feelings aids in information processing and can reveal personal issues. Methods include bullet journaling and gratitude, which a 2024 study linked to a longer lifespan.

This Cleveland Clinic overview suggests that around 60% of people caring for family or loved ones with health conditions will experience burnout. Caregivers prepare meals, help with transportation, administer medications, and perform daily tasks for others, all while managing their own lives. This guide may help readers overcome the guilt or frustration of long-term caregiving to seek alternative options.

Finding your way after the death of a spouse can be aided by attending a regular and consistent grief group. The people attending those gatherings are uniquely poised to understand what you may be experiencing.

Hearing loss does not cause dementia, but it does increase the risk of developing dementia and research suggests that people who wear hearing aids for age-related hearing loss also maintain better brain function than those who don't.

Despite more than 100,000 people with Alzheimer's dying each year, the specific cause of death is not the disease itself. Often, secondary diseases arise from complications with the disease, including pneumonia, severe falls, malnutrition, or infection. Read more about the range of complications caused by Alzheimer's here.

People who sit for at least 10 hours per day are more likely to develop dementia, according to a study published in 2023. This article details the study on the murky relationship between brain health and prolonged sitting. This study involved...