Karin Kasdin writes on dementia and the Margaret Thatcher movie, The Iron Lady, reflecting and reinforcing some of my thoughts in Dementia, Margaret Thatcher, and What It’s Really Like (January 15, 2012). Moreover, she writes more about privacy issues, includes an insightful quote from Meryl Streep, and deftly identifies the fear that many adult children experience — and I include myself here — when we think about dementia and Alzheimer’s.
Kasdin writes:
I fear death less than I fear Alzheimer’s. Each time I forget where I put my phone, or blank on a person’s name, or am unable to retrieve a word from the archives of my brain, that fear rears its ugly head. If the scourge that devours whole families in a single bite were ever to strike me, I would use my last remaining faculties to demand privacy.
In the long run, Streep’s portrayal may become a classic, offering people a window to view the increasing confusion and decreasing control that people with these brain diseases experience. We expect nothing less from Meryl Streep.
In the short run, privacy issues continue to make me queasy.
Read Kasdin’s entire piece in the Huffington Post.
As Our Parents Age So Do We 