Overview

A powerful memoir of resilience, love, and redefining life after an Alzheimer's diagnosis. After decades as a tireless advocate for justice and social change, Samuel A. Simon faces the most personal fight of his life: the slow, undeniable progression of cognitive decline. When the diagnosis of Alzheimer's disease comes, he refuses to fade quietly. Based on his award-winning play Dementia Man, this deeply personal memoir invites readers into Simon's ""existential journey""-a story told with candor, courage, and an unflinching look at a broken medical system. As he revisits pivotal moments from his past and navigates the daily challenges of neurocognitive disease, Simon offers an intimate portrait of a man determined to shape his own future, even as the disease seeks to define it. Both moving and urgently important, Dementia Man is changing the conversation about Alzheimer's in America. It's a story of hope and defiance that challenges us all to imagine a future of dignity, connection, and purpose for the millions living with cognitive decline.

Full Product Details

9781737909736

Table of Contents

Reviews

""Sam Simon is a gift to us all as we seek more space and place for people with memory challenges in our lives."" -Stephen G. Post, PhD, Director, Center for Medical Humanities, Compassionate Care & Bioethics, Stony Brook University School of Medicine ""This book is a captivating and thoughtfully written account of the author's fascinating life, including the years he's spent living with dementia... He rightfully advocates for a world where those living with brain changes are provided adequate support, and healthcare providers offer resources instead of simply a diagnosis."" -Teepa Snow, MS, OTR/L, FAOTA, Founder of Positive Approach to Care(R) ""Sam continues to live as a maker of 'good trouble, ' transforming pain into performance, isolation into dialogue, and despair into art. What a gift."" -Mary Fridley, Founder of The Joy of Dementia (You Gotta Be Kidding!) and Coordinator, Reimagining Dementia: A Creative Coalition for Social Justice

Author Information

Samuel A. (Sam) Simon is in what he calls his ""fourth age"" as a playwright and performer-an era, he says, that found him. A lawyer and original Nader's Raider, he wrote his first play, The Actual Dance, in 2012 after his wife's stage-three breast cancer diagnosis, performing it nationwide beginning in 2013. A decade later, following his own Alzheimer's diagnosis, he created Dementia Man, the award-winning one-man play that inspired this memoir. Both plays have been performed hundreds of times, most often with Simon himself on stage. Learn more and connect with Sam at DementiaMan.com.

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