My Fathers Brain: Life in the Shadow of Alzheimers

There may be up to 10 million Indians living with Alzheimer’s disease or related dementias, and that number is expected to increase dramatically in the next few decades. What is it like to live with and amid this increasingly prevalent condition-an affliction that some fear more than death? In My Father’s Brain, the distinguished physician and author Sandeep Jauhar sets his father’s descent into Alzheimer’s alongside his own journey toward understanding this disease and how it might best be coped with, if not cured.

In an intimate memoir rich with humour and heartbreak, Jauhar relates how his immigrant father and extended family felt, quarrelled, and found their way through the dissolution of a cherished life. Along the way, he lucidly exposes what happens in the brain as we age and our memory falters and explores everything from the history of ancient Greece to the most cutting-edge neurological-and bioethical-research.

This is a work of essential insight into dementia, and into how scientists, caregivers, and all of us in an aging society are reckoning with the fallout.