Travelers to unimaginable lands : stories of dementia, the caregiver, and the human brain
(Book)

Includes bibliographical references (pages 191-222) and index.

"After getting a master's degree in clinical psychology, Dasha Kiper became the live-in caregiver for a Holocaust survivor with Alzheimer's disease. For a year, Kiper endured the emotional strain of looking after a person whose condition disrupts the rules of time, order, and continuity. Inspired by her own experience and her work counseling caregivers in the subsequent decade, Kiper offers an entirely new way to understand the symbiotic relationship between patients and those tending to them. Her book is the first to examine how the workings of the "healthy" brain prevent us from adapting to and truly understanding the cognitively impaired one. In these poignant but unsentimental stories of parents and children, husbands and wives, Kiper melds science and storytelling to explore the existential dilemmas created by Alzheimer's."--Dust flap.