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When he was 59 years old, Greg O’Brien was diagnosed with early-onset Alzheimer’s disease. Five years later, he is speaking publicly about his experience, even as his symptoms worsen.
Courtesy of Greg O’Brien
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Courtesy of Greg O’Brien
When he was 59 years old, Greg O’Brien was diagnosed with early-onset Alzheimer’s disease. Five years later, he is speaking publicly about his experience, even as his symptoms worsen.
Courtesy of Greg O’Brien
This is the first in a series, “Inside Alzheimer’s,” about the experience of being diagnosed with early-onset Alzheimer’s disease.
In 2009, 59-year-old Greg O’Brien was a successful journalist and writer living in Cape Cod. He was healthy and happy — he exercised every day, made a good living, spent time with his three children and wife.
But he had also started to notice changes in himself. He was forgetting things, and his judgment sometimes seemed to fail him. Meanwhile, his own mother was dying of Alzheimer’s disease.
And that year, he was diagnosed as well.
In the five years since his diagnosis, O’Brien has turned his writer’s focus on himself and published a memoir, On Pluto: Inside the Mind of Alzheimer’s.
For as long as he’s able, O’Brien says, he’ll continue to talk about what he’s going through.
“There are millions more [people] out there who are suffering through the stages of early-onset Alzheimer’s who are afraid to seek help. They’re afraid to talk to people,” he says. “If I could help give them that voice so maybe things get a little better for them, then that’s good.”
Interview Highlights
On being diagnosed with early-onset Alzheimer’s disease
I was diagnosed in 2009. It was scary, and I remember sitting in my neurologist’s office. He had all the test results and the clinical tests that I failed and the brain scan and all that, and he’s sitting next to my wife. He said, “You have Alzheimer’s.”
LISTEN: Father And Son
Greg O’Brien gave one of his sons, Brendan, power of attorney, which meant Brendan needed to understand the details of his father’s diagnosis. “We need to talk about this,” Greg said. But Brendan resisted.
Click to hear Greg recount their difficult conversation, which started a week after he told his children about his diagnosis.
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Article source: http://www.npr.org/blogs/health/2015/01/24/379381706/how-do-you-tell-your-kids-that-you-got-alzheimers?utm_medium=RSS&utm_campaign=news