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My grandfather, Heizel “Bill” Hilden, before he died used to say the goofiest things.  One doozy that I remember was when he flatly reported that the cane he carried came from the moon. It was a lovely gnarly wooden cane with white indentations if I recall.  But I doubt its provenance was the moon.   At least I’m pretty sure.

At the same time as Grandpa was talking about the moon and canes and such, he could also sing songs from his boyhood.  In Norwegian.  I doubt he had sung those songs in seven or eight decades, but apparently he nailed them – words and tune and all – in a language that he no longer spoke with any frequency.  That’s Grandpa with our son, Alex, in about 1994.  That kid is now 6’4″ tall.

I guess that is dementia in a nutshell.  My 90-something year old gramps had amazingly accurate long-term memory but couldn’t be dissuaded about the lunar origins of his wooden cane.

I bet many of you could tell a similar story of someone in your life with waning cognitive functioning.

In recognition of November Alzheimer’s Awareness Month, I hosted Dr. Anne Murray, a nationally-recognized researcher in dementia (and a colleague of mine) at the WCCO studios in downtown Minneapolis.  We talked about dementia, both Alzheimer’s and other types, and about the latest in research for this disease which is the 6th leading cause of death in the United States.  To hear the podcast of the radio broadcast about Alzheimer’s click the logo here:

Last July I discussed dementia in a previous post featuring another colleague of mine (Dr. Abigail Holley), so if you missed that post (the 6th most-popular post of the past year!), you may want to read it by clicking “Dementia is not normal aging.  It’s a Disease.”

So this post will not be information so much as a few stories.  The first was about my grandfather.  Let’s look at a couple more . . .  read more…