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Alzheimer's is a degenerative disease leading to dementia. It is a difficult disease for those who have it and lose their independence, as well as the family members who find themselves taking care of their parents or grandparents. Alzheimer's disease also lacks much scientific and medical understanding with very little known about how to prevent it, treat it, or what causes it. Only definitively diagnosable after death, Alzheimer's is often suspected for years, sometimes decades, before a loved one becomes unable to care for themselves and succumbs to dementia and death.

My grandmother suffered from the effects of Alzheimer's years before we realized anything was wrong. She had become increasingly forgetful and exhibited some odd behavior, but Grandma had always been a little different. If something was left on the kitchen table it would not be in the same place when we returned, and she couldn't remember what she had done with it. She started forgetting to feed her dog, leaving food to mold for weeks and claiming she had fed her that morning. Coffee would be left reheating on the stove until it was burnt and smoking, setting off the fire alarm. She would fall asleep in the middle of the day with a cigarette burning between her fingers and couldn't hear us banging on the door to come in, a sound sleep caused by exhaustion from being up all night with sundowners, a period of delusion and hallucination we did not know about at the time. She would tell us stories about midnight trips to the grocery store down the street and car rides she could not have possibly taken because she had sold her car a couple of years previous. She lived by herself into her early 80s; it was only after the stress of a broken hip and moving that we started putting the puzzle pieces together.

After falling and breaking her hip, she required surgery to have a pin inserted. She didn't come out of anesthesia the same woman. Her odd behavior from the previous couple of years was exaggerated and unceasing. My mom and aunt realized that Grandma wasn't able to take care of herself and the house anymore so she was moved into an apartment building where other retirees lived. A woman she already knew and liked lived there and both my mom and aunt lived within a few blocks. It ended up being a full time job having Grandma on her own. She would call them in the middle of the night, swearing that someone was trying to break in. She would barricade herself in her bedroom and was forgetting to wash

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