Video: You'll Never Be Alone

A daughter portrays her father’s progression with Alzheimer’s disease and shares the impact the disease has on her family. This documentary effectively depicts one family’s experience adjusting to the ever-changing reality that is Alzheimer’s disease.

This narrative covers a wide range of topics presented as vignettes of the family, interspersed with short commentaries by experts in the field of Alzheimer’s disease and dementia. A brief overview of dementia is provided along with early stage symptoms. There are also useful topics that address issues such as ways of coping and managing stress for caregivers, behavioral changes in the person with Alzheimer’s, dealing with hospitalizations, and coming to the decision of institutionalization.

What is most powerful, however, is actually seeing the process the family goes through in adjusting their lives around the disease. As the family resigns itself to one stage of the disease, their father again deteriorates, and they must learn to accept the new constancy of change in their lives. We see the family struggle as they manage the heartache of their father’s behavioral, mental, and emotional problems. The viewer feels for them as they are left without options and are finally forced to institutionalize their father.

Terry Fishman’s detail of her father Phil Morantz’s struggles with Alzheimer’s disease not only sheds light on the challenges faced by caregivers and families of people with Alzheimer’s. Her story also powerfully depicts the continued importance that such a person has within a family despite their decline.

Reviewed by Bethina Abrahams, volunteer, Alzheimer Society of B.C.