APW Book Club 2/25/23 – Robert Hershberger

Karen Lateiner is inviting you to a Zoom Book Club Meeting

SAVE THE DATE!

Topic: Diary of an Alzheimer”s Caregiver by Robert Hershberger
Date: Saturday, February 25, 2023
Time: 10 a.m. AZ time
Zoom: The Zoom invitation will be sent out to book club members the week before the meeting.

SUMMARY
This book is based on a diary about Deanna (Dee) Hershberger’s journey through Alzheimer’s disease from September of 2010 until her death on March 1, 2015 kept by Robert Hershberger, her husband and primary caregiver. It begins with a short introduction about Dee’s life before she contracted Alzheimer’s disease. It covers how she gradually lost her short-term memory while maintaining most of her physical and social abilities during the first two years of the journey. It then shows how she lost long-term memory, experienced psychotic episodes, had uncontrollable violent behavior, lost physical abilities, became incontinent and suffered from undetected illnesses through the last two years. It ends with the last two months of Deanna’s life when treated inappropriately in a psychiatric ward of a Phoenix hospital and caring treatment in an excellent memory care facility also in Phoenix. The book concludes with a brief summary of Dee’s life and a short note on ethics.

The diary also offers yearly reflections and advice that might help caregivers, family members, medical personnel, psychologists, church members, ministers, deacons and persons in families with a history of Alzheimer’s disease understand what to do and what not to do about extremely difficult behavior when caring for a person with Alzheimer’s disease.

The author hopes that readers will gain a compassionate understanding about people who contract the disease and those loved ones who become their primary caregivers. It can be a tough slog regardless of one’s best hopes and intentions.