Touching Dementia is no more than a series of reflections on my involvement in my wife’s eight-year battle with early-onset Alzheimer’s disease. My role was to escort Tina and comfort her through an extended terminal illness. It was tough, exhausting, and heartbreaking, but it was also a journey of discovery and love.

Our world is saturated with so-called expert advice on every subject—both real and invented—that you can name. It’s all too easy to suffocate in the smog of opinions we have access to, very little of which has proven to be of any tangible benefit.

I encountered plenty of dementia-related wisdom over the years, most of which warned me of the horrors that Tina and I would face, but little of it was practically useful. Dementia UK has an excellent website (https://www.dementiauk.org) that provides all the raw information you need, but it cannot offer insight into the specifics of the journey you are embarking on. This is because the brain is the most complex thing we have yet discovered in our universe. It contains hundreds of billions of cells interlinked through trillions of connections, so when those connections begin to die off in a random fashion and at an unpredictable rate, it becomes impossible to predict what will happen.

For that reason, this is not a “how-to” blog. However, in life, I have occasionally stumbled upon snippets of wisdom that resonate with me and shape how I react to life’s challenges—and, in turn, who I have become. These lightbulb moments are usually based on the experiences of others, which I have interpreted for personal guidance.

This blog certainly promises no snippets of wisdom. However, by sharing my experiences of walking the path of dementia with a loved one, I hope to inspire you to create your own valuable lightbulb moments.