Overview
"Finding the Right Words" is a book written for the general public that will help people understand the emotional challenges of dementia as well as the neurology of brain diseases. The book is based on Cindy's father's early onset Alzheimer's with the logopenic variant. The book is an attempt to find the right words for a disease that, in her father’s case, first took away his language. For some readers, the right words will be the ones about a daughter witnessing her father not knowing his wife of forty years. For others, the right words might be the ones that come from fiction or poetry. Still others will find the language of neurology most compelling.
Project Details
Each of the five chapters comprising Finding the Right Words: A Story of Literature, Grief, and the Brain takes up one aspect of Cindy Weinstein’s father’s early-onset Alzheimer’s disease, including diagnosis, word finding, spatial orientation, behavior, and memory. The structure of the book is as follows: Cindy writes about a specific clinical presentation to which Bruce responds with a discussion of the neurology behind that presentation. This approach is innovative and interdisciplinary, combining the experience of a daughter and an English professor with the expertise of a neurologist. As the book unfolds, the perspectives of the humanities and the sciences inform one another, and the voices of the literary critic and doctor harmonize to help readers understand the complexities of this disease and the grief that many will experience.
Book
You can find more information about the book, Finding the Right Words: A Story of Literature, Grief, and the Brain, is available at weinsteinandmiller.com. An audio version of the book is available here.
Events
- University of Michigan Event: Breaking the Dementia Stigma (November 2022)*
- BrainLat workshop on the importance of the humanities in science writing (December 2021)
- UCSF Memory and Aging Center Grand Rounds (December 2021)
- Belmont Books (September 2021)*
- Caltech Behind the Book (September 2021)*
- Alzheimer’s Association Awardee Update (August 2021)*
*Videos for are included below
Press
- Journal of the Association of Neurophysiological Scientists (pp. 61-63)(June 2024)
- BMJ Journals Blog (March 2023)
- The Doctors Bookshelf (February 2023)
- Narrative Inquiry (February 2023)
- Penn Memory Center (December 2021)
- The Wheeler Column (December 2021)
- Wall Street Journal (November 2021)
- Atlantic, Pacific and Beyond Podcast (November 2021)
- Midwest Book Review (October 2021)
- Authorlink (October 2021)
- Next Avenue (October 2021)
- Thoughts from a Page Podcast (October 2021)
- WGVU Public Media (September 2021)
- LA Times (September 2021)
- Johns Hopkins University Press (September 2021)
- Book Excerpts on GBHI Website (August 2021)
- Pasadena Now (July 2021)
Members involved
Videos
Finding the Right Words book cover
Featured Collaborators
