Why we haven’t yet cured Alzheimer’s and other dementias
The particular relevance of Modern Portfolio Theory in overcoming certain human behavioral tendencies
Editing by Christina Cantwell
My father died of complications from dementia.
His illness didn’t make for a sensitive, tender, trying but touching Hollywood portrayal, at least not the bulk of it. It was brutal. It bore down on us like a fucking Mack truck.
Twice he tried to kill my mother. The first time, I was around and subdued him, wild eyed in their apartment building ground-level parking garage, laying into a steel door with an entire windshield wiper he had torn off their own vehicle. He had knocked her down using two 1-gallon jugs of water from Costco following their shopping trip there. Like a helicopter propeller, he had swung them around with outstretched arms, delivering blows to her head.
He then set upon her while she lay on the ground, disoriented, hitting and kicking her further. She had escaped by crawling into the elevator, which required a key to open, while he went for that windshield wiper. Making it to the second floor, she staggered into their apartment where I had been awaiting their return, the abrasions on her face and head bloody and already bruising, the…
