My Mother's Keeper

Most people, at some point in their lives, confront issues with aging parents. Whether the problems are medical, financial, logistical, or emotional-or some combination-it's easy to feel overwhelmed and helpless.

My Mother's Keeper: One Family's Journey through Dementia chronicles the author's journey through parental deterioration. At first, she didn't even recognize it as an illness. Once she found herself up to her neck in a nightmare, she had no time for research. She spent every waking moment coping, reacting, and scrambling-and was simply too exhausted to do more than try to put out each fire as it flared.

Later, once the crisis subsided, she found several books, articles, and websites that contained helpful information about dementia, its associated behaviors, and care suggestions for patients. What she didn't find were stories of how families coped with it.

By sharing her experience, she hopes to help fill that gap. This book tells her family's story of rapidly-accelerating personality changes, aggression, violence, fear, mistakes, hopelessness, helplessness, and eventual closure. The author hopes it will help readers who find themselves embarking on a similar journey understand that they are not alone.