Lost in the Mind

One Alzheimer's Disease patient described the disease this way: "Unless you have it yourself, there's no way you can explain it to anyone else. It's not fun." The inevitable decline of the Alzheimer's patient is also "not fun" for the patient's caregiver. Caregivers have described Alzheimer's as "a kind of living bereavement," as loved ones pass through stages of confusion to unintelligibility, total incapacity, and death. The process can take up to twenty years. Lost in the Mind features excellent computer animation illustrating key concepts, and discusses promising new therapies; however, it is the interviews with patients and families which poignantly show the human dimension of the disease. With its strong emphasis on caring-for-the-caregiver, this very informative title would be highly recommended but for the apparent insensitivity of the producer: when interviewing patients his attempts to highlight their memory loss (a point already made) is simply embarrassing. In addition, his remark that good care "may benefit the feeling person who some believe exists deep inside the vacant stares" won't sit well with health-care professionals and family members who understand that each patient remains a feeling human being, "vacant stares" or not. Recommended, with the aforementioned reservations. Aud: H, C, P. (R. Reagan)