"All the drawers which we filled in years of our lives suddenly start to empty and little by little in there nothing remains. It's like a slow and heavy removals without a firm authorized me to help you move things more difficult and above all gradually. Especially without professionals that allow you to keep with you what you want to keep. " So Manuela Donghi, journalist and presenter of radio and television, describes Alzheimer's disease in the book "See for yourself" (Giuliano Ladolfi Publisher, 158 pages, 12 €), presented in Milan.
A life always true to itself
A touching story, emotional, whose author - in fiction - is a sixteen year old who attends assiduously a nursing home for the elderly although not there any relative. The little girl befriends Maria, suffering from Alzheimer's, and becomes attached to other guests of the center, as well as a valet. That the nursing home becomes a "parallel" reality, suspended, alongside the life of the protagonist, made up of friends, family, first loves, school, text messages, doubts and desires. In diary form (updated constantly), the book describes the elderly - Maria, beloved, Ada Franco, Agnes - and life always true to itself of that place closed. "In the case of a hospice, the slowness is a firm and immovable reality. No rewind and without alternatives - writes Donghi -. A slow flow of images that are repeated. The alarm sounds and what happens is the replica of the day before, and the one before that".
experimental therapy at the San Raffaele
"The book is the result of a personal experience - says the author, who leads the political program" Bread Bread "on Radio Lombardia -. My maternal grandmother, who died in 2012, was for twenty years suffering from Alzheimer's: it has been ten at home, partly with my parents and partly by a caregiver, and ten others in a nursing home. The course of the disease was slow, maybe even grace and an experimental therapy which my grandmother was subjected to San Raffaele hospital in Milan (described in the book, ed) that could indeed have lengthened the time of the inevitable demise of the most recent memories . And thanks to the fact that my grandmother had no other diseases, physically he was fine. "
The patient lives in his own world
Those suffering from Alzheimer's tends to have sharp memories of the past, even far away, and to confuse it with the present, which has rather little conscience for the inability of the brain to store new information. "The first phase is the worst, is a bit 'like being bipolar - Donghi writes in the book -. The alternation of lucid moments with as many of loss is breathtaking to people who are close to the sick, and anger, suffering, discouragement, impotence, are indescribable. It is perhaps the only disease in which to suffer are more people who love you, indeed, perhaps the only ones. Because the patient does not realize what is happening, he lives in his own world. "
A light story, unscientific
The main character, witnessing the deterioration of elderly people, cares for his own health: "The other night, at home, my dad called me from asking job registrargli a film that would not have had time to see. I should do it right away. Instead I sent back, and I forgot. Normal? It can happen?". "I wanted the story of the main character was light, unscientific and not influenced by blood with the elderly, Alzheimer's disease is something that revealed gradually - says the author -. But I remember well what my grandmother lived, and for seeing it in person or by the stories of my mother, who came to see her every day in the nursing home. At first he was able to feed herself, then worsened gradually, he was always in a wheel chair and had to be assisted for each activity. "
A surprise ending (really unpredictable)
The girl puts more and more in the shoes of the guests at the nursing home. "When we see an old man cry too often take for granted that cry for nothing. But how can we be sure? It is true, especially in the case of Alzheimer's is hard to believe that tears can make sense. Yet you have it all right, and deeper too, "says the book. After a series of misfortunes and tragedies happened to the elderly co-stars, in parallel to the events that the girl lives inwardly and in his real life, comes the surprise ending, heralded by some signs that the author has skillfully between the lines and taking meaning only arrived at the end of the book. "In here the line between reality and fantasy is very thin, is getting weak," he wrote the girl-author, bringing the reader into the deep end, melancholy, with a declaration of love to people who have given us so much and that there are no more.
Part of the proceeds to the center "Dino Ferrari"
The book, on sale in bookstores and in the coming days even on Amazon, has been realized in partnership with Korian Italy (European leader in the management of residences for the third and fourth age) and the Friends of the Center "Dino Ferrari". Part of the proceeds of the book will be donated to the latter, which supports and promotes the scientific research activities of the Centre in the field of neuromuscular and neurodegenerative diseases. The preface is the sports journalist Federico Buffa, who has seen up close the Alzheimer's disease as they suffered her mother.
Laura Cuppini