On Pluto: Inside the Mind of Alzheimer's by Greg O'Brien
At twilight, I’m back on the mat with the monster. The journey through Alzheimer’s is a marathon. That’s why I run several miles each night to increase the cerebral flow as the sun begins to set and more confusion takes over. I run until my legs give out. My daily physical routine helps reduce end-of-day confusion and restlessness, common in dementia patients, a period known as “sundowning,” caused as light fades to black—a time of greater rage, agitation, and mood swings.
Part of living with Alzheimer’s and slowing the progression is in the daily training regimen to accelerate synapses. Consider the jaggy dendrite we learned about in high school biology—a spine or tree-like projection of a neuron that passes signals to other brain cells. Exercising the brain, experts say, builds new dendrites, pathways that create alternate routes for synapse that can help one function with Alzheimer’s for longer periods, while other neurons are dying off. In short, I believe, one can re-circuit the brain to receive and transmit information, staving off, for a time, some of the more horrific symptoms of this disease. But in the end, the neurons go dead.
It’s the place I find myself today, pushing back daily against a loss of synapse that is progressing, as neurons die off.
As the sun sets on this longest day, I will be back on my treadmill as individuals around the world engage in a faithful uphill climb to halt this tsunami of a disease about to swamp a generation.
Recommended reading:
On Pluto: Inside the Mind of Alzheimer’s by Greg O’Brien (Codfish Press, 2014)
What’s it like to lose your mind, to see slices of your very identity slipping away piece by piece? Veteran journalist Greg O’Brien likens it to a trip out to Pluto “where no one can see you or hear what is said.” Pluto, he writes, is metaphor for loss of self—penetrating isolation that heightens the urge to drift even further.
Diagnosed at 59 with early-onset Alzheimer’s, O’Brien has written an illuminating, naked and honest account of living with Alzheimer’s, not dying with it. Drawing on his cognitive reserve, he is reporting back to Earth his experiences as he journeys further into inner space.
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