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This is our season one finale, recorded on our mom Rosemary's birthday, and it holds three things: what's changed in Alzheimer's diagnosis and research over the last year and a half, an honest look at where we actually are now compared to where we thought we'd be, and a conversation with our mom herself to close out the season.

We start with the biggest shift in diagnosis since our mom's own P-tau217 test: several new FDA-cleared blood tests have come out in just the past year, including one approved for symptomatic adults as young as 40, cutting down the need for invasive procedures like lumbar punctures or PET scans. We share practical advocacy tips for anyone still fighting to be taken seriously by a doctor, including writing down specific incidents, bringing someone with you to appointments, and asking directly for a neuropsychological evaluation rather than waiting on a general screening. We also talk through the real toll of caregiving, reframed not as a debate about whether care should be paid, but as an honest look at the extra full-time load caregivers carry and its documented impact on caregiver health.

From there we get into where we actually are, a year and a half in. It's not the outcome we feared, and it's not the outcome we'd hoped for either. It's less bleak than we expected, but not lighter. We talk through the specific, ongoing signs, changes in handwriting, difficulty with numbers, concepts slipping, alongside what's still very much her: still funny, still thinking of her grandson, still herself in the moments that matter most.

We close the season with our mom, asking her about her life rather than her diagnosis, her memories of each of us, of becoming a grandmother, of family trips and everyday moments, and hearing directly from her, on her birthday, how this past year has actually felt for her.

This episode covers new Alzheimer's blood tests, advocating for a neuropsychological evaluation, early onset Alzheimer's diagnosis delays, caregiver burden and health, and living with early onset Alzheimer's one year after diagnosis.

Support the show

Thanks for walking this journey with us. Conversations Through Alzheimer's is hosted by sisters Amber and Felicia, and new episodes drop every Monday through September 2026.

If this show has resonated with you, share it with someone who needs it and leave us a review wherever you get your podcasts. Follow along on our socials:

• TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@conversationsthroughalz 
• YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@ConversationsThroughALZ

Support the Alzheimer's Association by joining our Walk to End Alzheimer's team or donating: https://act.alz.org/site/TR/Walk2026/NY-WesternNewYork?pg=team&team_id=1057467&fr_id=19818

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This episode is a Q&A where we answer some of the most common questions we’ve gotten from support groups, forums, and our DMs about caregiving for someone with Alzheimer’s.

We cover the guilt that comes with getting frustrated or short with a loved one even when you know it’s the disease, how to know when it’s time to push for a cognitive evaluation instead of explaining symptoms away, and why Alzheimer’s rarely progresses in a straight line, plateaus can last a while and then something changes without warning. We also talk through what’s often called ambiguous grief, the experience of grieving someone who’s still alive, and the different ways we’ve each tried to process that, including finding gratitude for what our mom can still do rather than only focusing on what’s changed.

From there we get into sibling dynamics and how we’ve managed disagreeing on caregiving decisions without it damaging our relationship, and we answer the question we get asked most often: why we chose to share something this personal publicly instead of keeping it private, including how it feels different watching supportive comments come in from podcast listeners versus the more anonymous judgment that can show up on TikTok.

This episode covers Alzheimer’s caregiver guilt, when to seek an Alzheimer’s evaluation, ambiguous grief and dementia, sibling conflict in caregiving, and why we’re documenting our mom’s early onset Alzheimer’s journey publicly.

Support the show

Thanks for walking this journey with us. Conversations Through Alzheimer's is hosted by sisters Amber and Felicia, and new episodes drop every Monday through September 2026.

If this show has resonated with you, share it with someone who needs it and leave us a review wherever you get your podcasts. Follow along on our socials:

• TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@conversationsthroughalz 
• YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@ConversationsThroughALZ

Support the Alzheimer's Association by joining our Walk to End Alzheimer's team or donating: https://act.alz.org/site/TR/Walk2026/NY-WesternNewYork?pg=team&team_id=1057467&fr_id=19818

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This is a real-time early-onset Alzheimer’s update from our mom Rosemary’s two-week visit to see us in New York this summer, documenting what we noticed as the trip went on and what we learned about how much is too much right now.

We cover the travel logistics first to help support her: using a gate pass and the Sunflower program for hidden disabilities. Then we walk through the trip day by day: how good she seemed in the first few days, a pattern we started to notice where she seemed to be pushing herself to prove nothing was wrong, and the specific moments that showed us she was reaching what we started calling “cognitive fatigue”  repeating the same questions and stories, getting turned around with directions and orientation, and struggling to make small decisions she normally wouldn’t think twice about.

We also talk honestly about the toll a long visit takes on the caregiver side, including the tension between wanting to protect her cognitive energy through advance planning and simply running out of our own capacity to do that, and the guilt that comes with needing space from someone you love and are also grieving in real time. We end with the question we’re still sitting with: whether shorter, more frequent visits are actually better for her wellbeing than longer ones, even when she strongly disagrees.

This episode covers early onset Alzheimer’s caregiving, cognitive fatigue in Alzheimer’s patients, traveling with someone who has Alzheimer’s, airport accommodations for hidden disabilities, caregiver burnout, and long-distance caregiving for a parent with dementia.

Support the show

Thanks for walking this journey with us. Conversations Through Alzheimer's is hosted by sisters Amber and Felicia, and new episodes drop every Monday through September 2026.

If this show has resonated with you, share it with someone who needs it and leave us a review wherever you get your podcasts. Follow along on our socials:

• TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@conversationsthroughalz 
• YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@ConversationsThroughALZ

Support the Alzheimer's Association by joining our Walk to End Alzheimer's team or donating: https://act.alz.org/site/TR/Walk2026/NY-WesternNewYork?pg=team&team_id=1057467&fr_id=19818

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This episode is a conversation with our dad, Lyle, about his experience as the spouse and primary caregiver for our mom Rosemary since her early onset Alzheimer’s diagnosis.

We talk through what it was like for him in the years before her diagnosis, including a career change and job loss in 2019 that he now recognizes as an early sign, and the long process of considering anxiety, depression, and ADHD before Alzheimer’s was ever on the table. He also talks about deciding to retire early to spend more time with her, and the emotional weight of realizing that some of the things he’d hoped to share with her going forward, like a piece of land he bought in Colorado, may not look the way he expected.

We get into the specific ways he’s had to change how he communicates with her, including lowering his tone and intensity, treating a question asked for the twelfth time like the first, learning not to argue or point out what she can’t see or remember, and why that adjustment has taken real time and self-reflection rather than happening automatically. He also shares what he’d tell another spouse who just received this same diagnosis, and what he wishes friends and family understood about supporting a caregiver.

This episode covers being a spousal caregiver for Alzheimer’s, early onset Alzheimer’s and marriage, caregiver communication strategies, coping with an Alzheimer’s diagnosis as a spouse, caregiver burnout and self-care, and long-term grief in dementia caregiving.

Support the show

Thanks for walking this journey with us. Conversations Through Alzheimer's is hosted by sisters Amber and Felicia, and new episodes drop every Monday through September 2026.

If this show has resonated with you, share it with someone who needs it and leave us a review wherever you get your podcasts. Follow along on our socials:

• TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@conversationsthroughalz 
• YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@ConversationsThroughALZ

Support the Alzheimer's Association by joining our Walk to End Alzheimer's team or donating: https://act.alz.org/site/TR/Walk2026/NY-WesternNewYork?pg=team&team_id=1057467&fr_id=19818

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This episode is about the caregiver resources and support systems we wish we'd known about sooner in our mom's Alzheimer's journey.

We start with a quick check-in about our mom going to bingo with friends for the first time since her diagnosis, and the different instincts Amber and Felicia had about whether that was a good idea, which opens into a broader conversation about staying connected with someone who has Alzheimer's, including a TikTok tip on why "want to get dinner?" can feel harder to answer than "dinner's at seven" for someone with dementia.

Then we walk through the resources: the Alzheimer's Association's free 1-800 line and one-on-one consultations with dementia specialists, caregiver support groups (including a Zoom-optional daughters-of-Alzheimer's group), the difference between support groups for children versus spouses of someone with Alzheimer's, books like Travelers to Unimaginable Lands and The End of Alzheimer's, individual therapy for processing caregiver triggers, county-level Area Agency on Aging programs, geriatric care managers and memory disorder clinics, the FAST scale for measuring cognitive decline, and state-specific driving evaluations for people with dementia.

This episode covers Alzheimer's caregiver support, Alzheimer's Association resources, caregiver support groups, early onset Alzheimer's, dementia driving evaluations, the FAST scale for cognitive decline, caregiver therapy and burnout, and books about caregiving for Alzheimer's and dementia.

Resources:

Alzheimer's Caregiver Resources: https://www.alz.org/help-support/caregiving

Find your local chapter for getting involved: https://www.alz.org/local_resources/find_your_local_chapter

Find a support group: https://www.alz.org/help-support/community/support-groups

Support the show

Thanks for walking this journey with us. Conversations Through Alzheimer's is hosted by sisters Amber and Felicia, and new episodes drop every Monday through September 2026.

If this show has resonated with you, share it with someone who needs it and leave us a review wherever you get your podcasts. Follow along on our socials:

• TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@conversationsthroughalz 
• YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@ConversationsThroughALZ

Support the Alzheimer's Association by joining our Walk to End Alzheimer's team or donating: https://act.alz.org/site/TR/Walk2026/NY-WesternNewYork?pg=team&team_id=1057467&fr_id=19818

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This episode is about a question we hadn’t tackled yet on this podcast but have thought about every day since our ’s Alzheimer’s diagnosis: what does this mean for our own risk of getting the disease.

Today we share more about what we learned regarding inherited risk of Alzheimer’s disease. More commonly genetics is just one contributing factor among many. We use the APOE2, APOE3, and APOE4 gene variants (our mom is A3/A3, or “neutral risk”) and we found a garden analogy — genetics as the soil, risk factors as weeds you can manage but never fully control — to explain how we’ve been think about this.

We also share the specific lifestyle changes we’ve each made since her diagnosis: strength training for hippocampal health and insulin sensitivity, cutting sugar, sauna use, treating hearing loss and sleep apnea early, managing blood pressure, and staying socially connected — plus the 2024 Lancet Commission finding that 45% of dementia cases link to 14 modifiable risk factors.

This episode covers Alzheimer’s risk factors, the APOE gene, Alzheimer’s prevention, genetic risk of early onset Alzheimer’s, modifiable dementia risk factors, hippocampus health, sleep apnea and Alzheimer’s, and lifestyle changes to reduce Alzheimer’s risk.

Healthy brain habits: https://www.alz.org/help-support/brain_health/10-healthy-habits-for-your-brain

Support the show

Thanks for walking this journey with us. Conversations Through Alzheimer's is hosted by sisters Amber and Felicia, and new episodes drop every Monday through September 2026.

If this show has resonated with you, share it with someone who needs it and leave us a review wherever you get your podcasts. Follow along on our socials:

• TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@conversationsthroughalz 
• YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@ConversationsThroughALZ

Support the Alzheimer's Association by joining our Walk to End Alzheimer's team or donating: https://act.alz.org/site/TR/Walk2026/NY-WesternNewYork?pg=team&team_id=1057467&fr_id=19818

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This episode is about the connection between stress and Alzheimer’s disease progression, and the specific ways we’ve changed how we communicate with our mom Rosemary to help lower her stress.

We start with a short update on the small logistical things that came up this week — mom scheduling her own doctor’s appointment and using shared medical portal access so she doesn’t have to re-explain results, and a reset of our system for managing her supplement refills across four people.

Then we get into the research: in a healthy brain, the hippocampus signals the body to stand down after a stress response, but the hippocampus is one of the first regions damaged by Alzheimer’s, so that off-switch doesn’t work the same way. This means cortisol stays elevated longer, which further damages the hippocampus, creating a cycle. We also talk about how Alzheimer’s affects the prefrontal cortex’s ability to separate the source of an emotional trigger from its target, meaning a loved one raising their voice at the TV or being frustrated about an unrelated situation can still register in an Alzheimer’s patient’s brain as a direct threat.

We share specific examples of how this showed up with our mom, including a genuinely difficult conversation about our dad’s tone of voice, and how something as simple as an unplanned password reset or a disrupted morning routine could affect her for the rest of the day. We also talk through what worked, including how we approached a family trip to Disney World with her routine, food, and cognitive load in mind, and end with a practical list of communication strategies for lowering stress with someone who has Alzheimer’s: keeping tone positive and reassuring, letting go of small mistakes instead of revisiting them, giving space to find words without rushing in, and not carrying tension from one moment into the next.

Articles referenced in the show about lowering the stress on alzheimers: 

• https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/8315237/
  
  
• https://www.nia.nih.gov/health/alzheimers-changes-behavior-and-communication/communicating-someone-who-has-alzheimers

Support the show

Thanks for walking this journey with us. Conversations Through Alzheimer's is hosted by sisters Amber and Felicia, and new episodes drop every Monday through September 2026.

If this show has resonated with you, share it with someone who needs it and leave us a review wherever you get your podcasts. Follow along on our socials:

• TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@conversationsthroughalz 
• YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@ConversationsThroughALZ

Support the Alzheimer's Association by joining our Walk to End Alzheimer's team or donating: https://act.alz.org/site/TR/Walk2026/NY-WesternNewYork?pg=team&team_id=1057467&fr_id=19818

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This is a real-time update on our mom Rosemary's early onset Alzheimer's journey from April 2026. We had been going through months of testing and workups to understanding if our mom would be a candidate for anti-amyloid infusion therapies — lecanemab and donanemab.

We walk through the full workup: the APOE genetic testing, the lumbar puncture required to confirm eligibility, and the genetic counseling to rule out inherited mutations tied to early onset Alzheimer's. We also get into what happened after the lumbar puncture — a spinal headache that sent our mom to the ER for a blood patch while our dad was out of town, and what we learned about aftercare instructions and coordinating care from a distance.

Then we talk through the call that changed the direction of this whole decision: her tau levels were high enough that the studies show almost no measurable benefit from the infusion therapy for someone at her level, even though she wasn't formally ruled out as a candidate. We talk about how that news landed for her, for us, and how we've had to separate the clinical data from the grief of hearing it.

This episode covers real time processing of our mom's Alzheimer's diagnosis and what it's like as adult children trying to make these decisions as part of our mom's care team.

Support the show

Thanks for walking this journey with us. Conversations Through Alzheimer's is hosted by sisters Amber and Felicia, and new episodes drop every Monday through September 2026.

If this show has resonated with you, share it with someone who needs it and leave us a review wherever you get your podcasts. Follow along on our socials:

• TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@conversationsthroughalz 
• YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@ConversationsThroughALZ

Support the Alzheimer's Association by joining our Walk to End Alzheimer's team or donating: https://act.alz.org/site/TR/Walk2026/NY-WesternNewYork?pg=team&team_id=1057467&fr_id=19818

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This episode is about adding functional medicine to our mom Rosemary's early onset Alzheimer's care team, and how it's helped support her over the last year.

We start with a quick update on where things stand outside of the medical side — her disability application is still pending after ten months on the Compassionate Allowances list, we're working on getting her back into memory care therapy through insurance, and we've started filling out power of attorney and other estate planning forms now, while she's still able to participate in that process.

Then we get into the main topic: what a year of working with a functional medicine doctor alongside her neurologist has actually looked like. We talk through the diet changes she was given — cutting gluten, dairy, sugar, peanuts, and corn to manage blood sugar and inflammation — the supplements she takes daily, and the adjustments and mistakes that came with managing all of it. We share specific moments that showed us how connected her diet is to her cognition, including a stretch of months where she was unknowingly drinking a protein latte with dairy and sugar in it, and the decline in her word-finding and mental clarity during that time, which reversed within about a week of cutting it out.

We also bring our mom Rose on to share her own experience — what it's been like managing this many dietary changes and supplements for over a year, whether she can tell what's actually helping, and how she's approaching exercise, sleep, and stress a year into her diagnosis.

This episode covers functional medicine for Alzheimer's, early onset Alzheimer's care, Alzheimer's diet and nutrition, blood sugar and cognitive decline, brain health supplements, sleep and amyloid plaque clearance, power of attorney for dementia patients, and Social Security disability for early onset Alzheimer's.

Support the show

Thanks for walking this journey with us. Conversations Through Alzheimer's is hosted by sisters Amber and Felicia, and new episodes drop every Monday through September 2026.

If this show has resonated with you, share it with someone who needs it and leave us a review wherever you get your podcasts. Follow along on our socials:

• TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@conversationsthroughalz 
• YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@ConversationsThroughALZ

Support the Alzheimer's Association by joining our Walk to End Alzheimer's team or donating: https://act.alz.org/site/TR/Walk2026/NY-WesternNewYork?pg=team&team_id=1057467&fr_id=19818

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This is the practical, unglamorous side of caregiving: wait lists, referrals, insurance chats, second opinions, and learning that you're allowed to ask for better. If you're just starting to build a care team for someone you love, this episode is the one we wish we'd had a year ago.

When our mom was diagnosed with early onset Alzheimer's, we thought getting a neurologist meant we were set. We were wrong. In this episode, we walk through everything it actually took to build a care team that works with her to support her health, mind, and wellbeing- including how to get second opinions and keep pushing for new medical conversations, especially after our first experience with her original neurologist post-diagnosis, who told her: "there's no cure, good luck."

While we understand the diagnosis we face, and we're not expecting an immediate cure, having a medical team that knows we want to spend as much time with our mom as possible, and slow the cognitive decline as much as possible, was important to us. This includes pursuing other kinds of support like working with a functional medicine doctor to support her entire body system, therapy, and memory therapy too.

We get into the parts nobody prepared us for: the insurance fight when a $900 memory therapy bill got denied after a coverage switch, the referral chase between PCP and neurologist, and why we ultimately went looking for a therapist who specializes in Alzheimer's and dementia specifically- because grief this specific needs someone who's seen it before. We also talk about why functional medicine can put you at odds with a traditional neurologist, and where our dad's skepticism has created real friction in how we approach mom's care.

In this episode: early onset Alzheimer's | building a care team | functional medicine | neurologist second opinion | memory therapy | Alzheimer's insurance denial | Alzheimer's therapist | caregiver advocacy | PCP referral | geriatric care manager

Support the show

Thanks for walking this journey with us. Conversations Through Alzheimer's is hosted by sisters Amber and Felicia, and new episodes drop every Monday through September 2026.

If this show has resonated with you, share it with someone who needs it and leave us a review wherever you get your podcasts. Follow along on our socials:

• TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@conversationsthroughalz 
• YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@ConversationsThroughALZ

Support the Alzheimer's Association by joining our Walk to End Alzheimer's team or donating: https://act.alz.org/site/TR/Walk2026/NY-WesternNewYork?pg=team&team_id=1057467&fr_id=19818