Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Alzheimer’s... But Were Afraid to Ask

By Debra Gordon

When Kathleen Negri’s previously energetic mother stopped cooking and cleaning and began sitting and staring out the window, Negri knew something was terribly wrong. But it took another five years of fear and denial before she and her family got a diagnosis and a word to explain her mother’s increasingly strange behavior: Alzheimer’s disease.


Those were five wasted years, says the 45-year-old Wheat Ridge resident. Wasted because the lack of a diagnosis meant her mother couldn’t begin taking medication that might have slowed the inevitable decline; wasted because she, her siblings and her father spent too much time being frustrated and angry with the older woman instead of accepting the limitations of the disease.


The experience affected Negri so dramatically that today she is embarking on a new career as a motivational speaker about Alzheimer’s disease, hoping to prevent other adult children from experiencing a similar situation.






Dementia vs. Alzheimer’s

If you or a loved one are diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease, chances are you’ve heard the word “dementia” a lot. Don’t get the two confused, warns Alzheimer’s specialist William Pendlebury, M.D.


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