Through The Looking Glass Of Alzheimer's

Vermont Public | By Patti Daniels,

Jane Lindholm

Published May 16, 2016 at 12:00 PM EDT

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When Alice had hallucinations she would ask, "You see her, don't you?" Dana would answer, "I can't see her, but I'm sure you can. You have special powers. You can see things that we can't."

Courtesy of Dana Walrath

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Alice's deceased husband Dave is alive and nearby throughout her experience of Alzheimer's.

Courtesy of Dana Walrath

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Alice would often believe she was living in a different time, and the disease compelled her to "accomodate simultaneous realities" says Walrath.

Courtesy of Dana Walrath

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Walrath's memoir is published by the Graphic Medicine Series by the Penn State Press.

Courtesy of Dana Walrath

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Dana Walrath, in a bucket, with her mother Alice.

Courtesty of Dana Walrath

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Alice Walrath, photographed at her graduation from Duke University in 1954.

Courtesy of Dana Walrath

When Alzheimer's Disease led Dana Walrath to care for her mother Alice at home, Alice told Dana, "Promise me you will do something else when it gets too hard." The story of Alice's decline, and how it changed their family and social relationships is told in Walrath's new book, Aliceheimer's: Alzheimer's Through the Looking Glass.

Walrath is a artist, writer and a medical anthropologist — a field that examines disease through the lens of political, social and physical conditions. She marshaled all of these professional skills to navigate a very personal experience: her mother Alice's Alzheimer's Disease.

Walrath's new graphic memoir weaves images and essays to tell stories of the years she spent caring for Alice in her home. The book provide a unique perspective on Alzheimer's Disease, combining anthropology, art and medicine into storytelling and one families approach to coping with the illness.

Broadcast live on Monday, May 16, 2016, at noon; rebroadcast at 7 p.m.