By "memory blues" we include all sorts of memory challenges whether they are called "Alzheimer's" or some other related dementia or acquired brain injury. Others can worry about clinical niceties while here we focus on managing these challenges and enjoying life.

By "dancing away" we include all sorts of activities which enrich lives of persons with these challenges.

Entries below are results of a thorough review of literature representing what we know about these activities. Annotated results are grouped into six categories.

You can contribute comments and contribute via email for us to add to these results. Email to: moyer.don.f@gmail.com

Saturday, March 29, 2008

How this Site Came to Be

Jenny and Don started a not-for-profit corporation in 2003 a year after Jenny's first diagnosis. The goal was to have our fellow travelers speak for themselves about issues important to them. A web site was started. Awareness became a special focus.

Before long it became clear that our fellow travelers were too busy with their challenges to participate in the web site. Later we discovered DASNI (Dementia Support and Advocacy Network International) which is
the best place for our fellow travelers to speak for themselves.

Over the years we raised quite a bit of money from friends and supporters. What should be done with the money? Jenny and Don saw that the missing piece was focus on ways to manage challenges and enjoy life in spite of the challenges.

So we commissioned a thorough literature search. Renee Beard is the princi
pal investigator and Deidre Guthrie did some of the research.

Renée L. Beard, Ph.D.
Dr. Beard received her doctorate from the Department of Social and Behavioral Sciences at the University of California, San Francisco. Her dissertation, “Managing Memory: Clinical Facts, Biomedical Negotiations, and Alzheimer’s Identities,” was a sociocultural ethnography of memory loss in clinical practice, advocacy arenas and everyday life. She is currently a National Institutes of Health postdoctoral fellow in gerontological public health at the Institute for Health Research and Policy at the University of Illinois at Chicago.

Dr. Beard’s main areas of inquiry are medical sociology and aging, including lay and expert knowledge, doctor-patient interactions and subjective experiences of illness and aging. Her current research projects include the Brain Health Initiative, a CDC-funded Healthy Aging Research Network study aiming to identify the health beliefs and behaviors of seniors diagnosed with Alzheimer’s and those without memory-related diagnoses.

Jenny Knauss, MA was born in UK, went to Nigeria and taught History at the University of Ibadan after her Oxford degree, married an American in Ghana, came to Chicago, soon found herself a single parent with two children, taught at various Universities in and near Chicago, began more than forty years of health care advocacy, was a pioneer in women's health reform, was CEO of a not-for-profit health care advocacy organization for twenty years, now manages her challenges and enjoys life every day in Chicago's parks and museums.


Don Moyer, PhD wears many hats (physicist, historian, patent agent, inventor, health care advocate, photographer, writer), lived short times in many places, had various college and university teaching and research posts, turned to freelancing, came to Chicago thirty years ago, began sharing life with Jenny soon after when those two children were teenage (brave fellow he), was CEO of a technology diffusion not-for-profit for twenty years, now helps Jenny manage her challenges and enjoys life every day in Chicago's parks and museums.

DON MOYER
& JENNY KNAUSS
1130 S MICHIGAN 2015
CHICAGO IL 60605-2320
jenny.and.don@gmail.com
moyer.don.f@gmail.com
http://don-explores.blogspot.com


312 435 7708 land
312 753 5123 mobile