Cathy Greenblat - Love, Loss, and Laughter: Seeing Alzheimers Differently

Cathy Greenblat, PhD (BA, Vassar College; MA, PhD Columbia University), has been engaged in a cross-cultural photographic project on aging, dementia, and end-of-life care since 2001. She is professor emerita of sociology at Rutgers University, where she served as a member of the Department of Sociology, Womens Studies, and the Bloustein School of Planning, teaching both undergraduate and graduate courses. During her academic career she authored more than a hundred professional articles and fourteen books. A photography-based book, Alive with Alzheimers, and the German translation were published after her retirement.

Dr. Greenblat was based at Rutgers for most of her thirty-five-plus years of professional life, but she held visiting research and teaching appointments at the University of New Hampshire, Princeton University Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs at Princeton, and Rutgers University Medical School (now UMDNJ). In addition, Professor Greenblat had short- and medium-term assignments from WHO, the World Bank, UNESCO, UNDP, IDRP, and other public agencies, and had committee or contract assignments from the Ford Foundation, the National Institutes of Health, the National Science Foundation, the Foundation for Science and Technology (Japan), the National Hemophilia Foundation, and other agencies and foundations.

Dr. Greenblat has lectured in the United States, Latin America, Eastern and Western Europe, Russia, Africa, India, the Philippines, China, and Japan. She was awarded the John P. McGovern, MD, Annual Award for work on Family, Health, and Human Values by the University of Houston in 2007 and delivered the 2010 Richard and Hinda Rosenthal Lecture at the Institute of Medicine. Photographs from this volume have been exhibited in the United States, Europe, and India. As the exhibits travel they will continue to heighten awareness and reduce stigma.

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Copyright 2012 by Cathy Greenblat

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, except as may be expressly permitted in writing from the publisher. Requests for permission should be addressed to Globe Pequot Press, Attn: Rights and Permissions Department, P.O. Box 480, Guilford, CT 06437.

Lyons Press is an imprint of Globe Pequot Press

Text design: Sheryl Kober
Layout artist: Maggie Peterson

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available on file.

ISBN 978-0-7627-7907-9

Printed in China

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Thanks to the generous support of Nutricia Advanced Medical Nutrition and Lundbeck Inc., the reach of Love, Loss, and Laughter will be greater than I could have dreamed.

This book is dedicated to all the people living with Alzheimers and related disorders who allowed me to photograph their experiences of love and laughter and to Kathy Greene, Kerry Mills, and Franoise Guillo-Ben Arous, who taught me by example about extraordinary caregiving.

Photography is so much more than image making, particularly photojournalism and documentary work. There are deeper responsibilities and moral and ethical issues connected to your work when you are given permission to enter peoples lives intimately to witness their pain and joy. We photographers become agents of communication, bridging worlds, charged with healing as well as slapping our viewers in the face with information they must know... We must learn to make the world a better place by shedding light on dark places but also by providing solutions and hope.

ED KASHI, PHOTOGRAPHER

I am sure you will agree that this book offers so much more than the beautiful pictures it displays. Through Cathy Greenblats camera lens and her great ability to describe real stories, we are welcomed into a world that is familiar to many and yet unknown by the worlds population in general. We must not forget that dementia knows no geographic boundaries and that behind every case of dementia there is a story and a real person.

This book is not about the difficulties dementia can cause, as some might expect. It is about the lives that continue in spite of it. It really is about seeing Alzheimers differently.

We have met so many individuals from across the world who are touched in some way by the same issue: dementia. We have been introduced to Maria, who is coming to terms with her impending move, and Len, who struggled to cope with losing his wife to Alzheimers disease. We have also encountered some great success stories: Mrs. Morimoto, who enjoys singing although she is no longer able to speak clearly; and Anu, who continues to support other caregivers while caring for her own husband.

I hope that you have been as inspired by this book as I have. I know from personal experience that it is easy to feel alone when a close friend or family member is diagnosed with dementia, and this book offers proof that nobody is in this alone. For every person living with dementia there is, or should be, a network of support. This book shows that regardless of where and how you live, there are ways to maintain a good quality of life surrounded by people who care.

On behalf of Alzheimers Disease International, I am grateful to Cathy for sharing her vision with us and helping to remind us that there are real people behind this disease who continue to live, and often thrive, with dementia.

PRINCESS YASMIN AGA KHAN,
PRESIDENT, ALZHEIMERS DISEASE INTERNATIONAL, AND
HONORARY VICE CHAIR OF THE ALZHEIMERS ASSOCIATION (USA)

I hope that the person who comes into my show and the person who comes out are not quite the same.

SEBASTIO SALGADO, PHOTOGRAPHER

I ve changed my mind about Alzheimers disease. I hope this book will help change yours.

For years I accepted the stereotypical view of people with dementia, one characterized by fear and despair about their changing brains and the consequences of those changes.

What Ive seen in homes, day-care centers, memory clinics, and residential communities in several countries over the past decade has challenged that mind-set. People living with dementia, along with their families and professional caregivers, offered a much more hopeful vision. They taught me that there are effective strategies for maintaining capacities, independence, and quality of life. It is indeed possible to change what is referred to as the long good-bye into a long hello.

I subsequently read about the paradigm shift underlying this new approach. Sociologist Tom Kitwood pointed the way from a biomedical model to a social model, and others have built upon his writings and work.