For World Alzheimer’s Month, ASK Me ponders the power of asking questions

This September, in honor of World Alzheimer’s Month, seven advocates diagnosed with different dementias collaborated with filmmaker Michelle Memran to create this video, sharing a simple request: Ask us. Ask questions. Come closer. Start a conversation about dementia with a person living with it. The idea seems simple, yet people living with these conditions are too rarely asked about their experiences with changing cognitive abilities.

For the past four months, Memran and advocate Joanna Fix, who is living with early-onset Alzheimer’s, have co-facilitated a group of lived experience experts from across the country: Bob Stahl, Dona Denham, Sean Terwilliger, Jeannie Wills, Seth Stern, and Karen Pope Barroso. They started by getting to know each other, shared the paths that brought them here, laughed and raged, and built trust and friendship. Somewhere along the way, ASK ME came alive. Michelle and editor-collaborator Jacqui Wedewer helped bring the group’s idea to life, sharing drafts with everyone as the piece took shape.

Asking about the experience living with changing cognitive abilities gives those living with dementia agency to tell their story and centers those who are too often looked past. By asking, we all can do our part in lessening stigma and improving the quality of life of those living with dementia.

ASK ME is the first video from Let This Be a Symphony’s new Media Action Group pilot, led by Michelle Memran and made possible with funding from the Global Brain Health Institute, Alzheimer’s Association, and Alzheimer’s Society. More are on the way.

Credits to:

• The Global Brain Health Institute, Alzheimer’s Association, and Alzheimer’s Society (funding)
• National Council of Dementia Minds (recruitment/support)
• All those who participated in the Media Action Group Pilot.
• Springfield Symphony Chorus photo courtesy of Silver Photography