Emma Heming Willis, credit: WAPO
This is a Washington Post book review of Emma Heming Willis’s new book about caregiving and her husband Bruce Willis’s journey with frontotemporal dementia. (Strangely, the book review author uses the acronym “FTP,” though the correct acronym is “FTD.”) The reviewer argues that this book is for caregivers of all forms of dementia and “caregivers at large facing the void of uncertainty, the pain of isolation and the hard decisions that come with this territory.” Many of the chapters in the book include information from dementia, caregiving, and other experts. “Chapters end with specific to-do lists, which help to break down what at first feels insurmountable. …
Heming Willis covers much ground, including making sense of the changing brain, the importance of building connection and community, making time for yourself, parenting while caregiving, the very hard decision to ask others for help and some of the lessons she’s learned to date, such as separating the disease from the person and the importance of caregivers taking care of themselves.”