Documenting Her Own Dementia

Guest: Gerda Saunders, PhD, Author of “Memory’s Last Breath: Field Notes on My Dementia” When Gerda Saunders was diagnosed with microvascular disease five days before her 61st birthday, her neurologist told her she was already “dementing,” which can be a strange and terrifying way to put it. “Dementing,” as a verb, sends the message that it’s happening actively, meaning the worst is yet to come. To Gerda Saunders, it also carried a sense that she was complicit in the crime – she eats, she walks, she dements. In trying to understand the diagnosis, she started writing about it. She called them her “Field Notes on Dementia” and they are now part of her just-published memoir, “Memory’s Last Breath.”