Learning About Alzheimer’s from People Living with It

When I logged into LinkedIn today, I came across a post from a stranger sharing their Alzheimer’s diagnosis.

I worry a lot about an Alzheimer’s diagnosis, both for myself and people I love. So for the last few years, I’ve been slowly educating myself, mostly online, about dementia, which is something 1 in 3 seniors experience.

Right now I have a Google Alert set up for “Alzheimer's breakthrough”, I read about clinical trials on Alzheimers.gov, and I just finished the book The Second Fifty, which went in-depth about the topic. Learning more about anything makes it less scary.

But today I realized in all my dementia internet research, I was only listening to experts, not first-hand accounts.

That’s different with what I do elsewhere. I like watching real working moms’ Day in the Lifes on YouTube alongside following parenting Instagram accounts by experts, and I like listening to honest episodes of the “How I Built This” podcast alongside perusing X threads written by startup thought leaders.

And so today, I clicked follow on Dr. Gregory Nelson, the person who shared his Alzheimer’s diagnosis earlier this week on LinkedIn. It’s time to round out my Internet expert research by learning from someone with firsthand experience.

The internet can be terrible. But at its best, it gives creators like Dr. Nelson a community during a hard time, and it gives followers like me a new teacher.

Onward.

-Molly Beck