Jason Karlawish, MD, professor of Medicine, Medical Ethics and Health Policy, speaks with WTOP radio in Washington, D.C. about his Health Affairs paper looking at ways society can prepare for living with Alzheimer’s disease. “If you have a patient with dementia, you invariably have at least one other person who has to take care of that person,” said Karlawish.
“They start to have Alzheimer’s disease…they live the disease, they think about the disease, they make decisions for the patient, so in some sense, the disease is as much their own experience as it is, of course, for the patient. Now is the time to be thinking about living with a brain at risk.”
“Whether as patients or as caregivers, we all have Alzheimer’s disease,” says Karlawish. “The question we must engage with is, How should we live with it?”
You can read more here. Listen to the interview with Dr. Karlawish on WTOP Radio here.