Publisher's Synopsis
After studying a master's degree in Clinical Psychology, Dasha Kiper worked as a caregiver for a Holocaust survivor suffering from Alzheimer's. Based on that experience and her subsequent work with caregivers of patients with dementia, Kiper proposes a new way of seeing and understanding the symbiotic relationship that is established between Alzheimer's and dementia patients and those who have to care for them. In the moving stories that Kiper collects in the book, she explores the dilemmas that these patients pose to those who have to live with them: a man's late and sudden Catholic devotion irritates his wife, a man believes that his partner is an imposter, a woman's imaginary friendships drive a wedge between her and her husband, a mother's childhood trauma emerges to torment her son... Combining neuroscience and literature, psychology and philosophy, with the teachings of a series of specific cases, Kiper illuminates the particular mental mechanisms of these patients and the difficulties they pose to those who they have to care for them, offering them comfort and understanding while debunking the myth of the perfect caregiver.
