A review by witchipedia
Travelers to Unimaginable Lands: Dementia and the Hidden Workings of the Mind by Dasha Kiper

5.0

A really thought-provoking read, inhaled this one, did skim some of the sections that I was less interested in. What's stayed with me most since reading is what she discusses about how our brains/bodies "borrow" from each other when people communicate. Which is fascinating in its own right (like how does neurodiversity affect this?) but she ties that to how ppl with dementia can often seem like their brains are more normatively functional than they actually are, because their brainwaves/neurons are matching and "borrowing" from ours. And how that makes it harder to not take it personally when loved ones with dementia say or act in hurtful ways. And then she takes it a step further to describe how its' not so simple as reminding caregivers/family/etc that "your person is not in your right mind, don't take it personally," because once you stop holding someone morally responsible for their behavior, you really lose them in a more devastating way- and can that loss be tolerated? This book really honors the complexity and difficulty of navigating dementia.