Every year, September invites communities to look honestly at a disease that quietly reshapes millions of families from the inside out. In Manitoba, the Alzheimer Society has spent decades building the infrastructure of connection — support groups, education, and a listening ear — so that caregivers like Doug Adams, who tends to his 92-year-old mother Ada alongside his twin brother, do not have to navigate the long diminishment of dementia alone. World Alzheimer's Month, now in its fifteenth year, is less a campaign than a reminder: that isolation is not inevitable, and that knowing where to t
Alzheimer's Society provides vital support for Manitoba caregivers
Alzheimer's dementia causes gradual cognitive decline, behavioral changes, and physical deterioration, affecting both patients and their family caregivers.
It's better to laugh than cry along the way
Mark
Why does Doug Adams say that realizing he wasn't alone was the real benefit? Couldn't he have found information online?
Mimi
Dementia caregiving isn't just an information problem. It's an emotional and practical one. When you're watching your mother fade, you need to know that other people have stood where you're standing and survived it. That changes how you move forward.
Luke
The piece doesn't say how many people use the Brandon office or how many are in the support groups. We know the groups exist and that Adams found them helpful, but we don't know the scale of the need or whether the current services are meeting demand.
Mark
Ada's humor seems to be a key part of how the family copes. Is that common in Alzheimer's cases?
Mimi
The piece doesn't claim it's universal, just that it's true for Ada and that the Alzheimer Society helped the Adams brothers understand they could lean into it rather than feel guilty about laughing. That permission matters.
Luke
Right—and we should be careful not to generalize from one family's experience. Dementia presents differently in different people. Ada's wit may be her particular grace, not a pattern the piece is equipped to describe.
Mark
What does the Alzheimer Society actually do beyond support groups?
Mimi
They offer physician-led physical activity, sensory items for people in later stages, multiple types of support groups depending on your role, and they're a listening ear on the phone. They help people figure out what resources they need and connect them.
Luke
The piece lists those services but doesn't go deep into how they work or what outcomes they produce. We know they exist; we don't know how effective they are or whether there are gaps in what they can provide.
Il Polso
- Alzheimer's dementia doesn't announce itself with a single crisis — it arrives gradually, reshaping a family's routines, relationships, and sense of self until the weight becomes almost invisible to those outside it.
- Caregivers like Doug Adams face not only the practical demands of managing a loved one's decline, but the deeper disorientation of watching someone they know become someone different.
- The Alzheimer Society of Manitoba offers a lifeline through support groups, physician-led programs, and tailored resources — but many Manitobans still don't know these services exist until they're already overwhelmed.
- World Alzheimer's Month is a deliberate push to reach families before the crisis point, turning a month of awareness into a bridge between isolation and community.
- CEO Erin Crawford's goal is simple and urgent: that anyone who didn't know where to turn in August will know by the end of September.
Every year, September invites communities to look honestly at a disease that quietly reshapes millions of families from the inside out. In Manitoba, the Alzheimer Society has spent decades building the infrastructure of connection — support groups, education, and a listening ear — so that caregivers like Doug Adams, who tends to his 92-year-old mother Ada alongside his twin brother, do not have to navigate the long diminishment of dementia alone. World Alzheimer's Month, now in its fifteenth year, is less a campaign than a reminder: that isolation is not inevitable, and that knowing where to turn can change everything.
Three years ago, Doug Adams walked into the Alzheimer Society of Manitoba looking for practical help. His mother Ada, then 89, had begun the slow cognitive fade that comes with Alzheimer's dementia — a decline that reshapes family life in ways both small and seismic. What he found, he says, was something he hadn't expected to need so badly: the knowledge that he wasn't carrying this alone.
Ada is 92 now, living with the disease's full weight — memory loss, behavioral shifts, the gradual erosion of physical capability. Doug and his twin brother David are her primary caregivers, a role that demanded they learn not just how to manage her medical needs, but how to live alongside a person who is changing in front of them. The Society connected them with a support group for adult children caring for aging parents, a space where others understood what it meant to keep showing up anyway. One unexpected lesson: laughter still belongs in this work. Ada's wit, Adams notes, has actually sharpened since her diagnosis, and the permission to laugh with her has become part of how the family moves through their days. They've kept doing the things she loved — trips to the mall, Applebee's, Swiss Chalet — caregiving that doesn't feel only like caregiving.
The Society's Brandon office, where Adams and his brother found their footing, is one of several access points across Manitoba. Regional coordinator Christine Jefferies describes the work as straightforward but essential: listening first, then connecting each person to resources suited to where they are in the journey. The office offers physician-led activity programs, sensory items for later-stage patients, and multiple support groups — for those diagnosed, for partners, for adult children, and for anyone who simply needs to sit with someone who understands.
September marks the 15th year of World Alzheimer's Month, a designation designed to pull dementia out of the shadows. CEO Erin Crawford frames it as a chance to reach people before crisis arrives — to ensure that anyone who didn't know about the Society in August knows where to turn by the end of September. Adams urges fellow caregivers to protect their own well-being and use what's available. Having these services locally, he says, is not a luxury. It is the difference between feeling lost and knowing where to turn.
Doug Adams walked into the Alzheimer Society of Manitoba three years ago looking for practical help. His mother, Ada, then 89, had begun the slow fade that comes with Alzheimer's dementia—the kind of decline that reshapes a family's daily life in ways both small and seismic. What Adams found, he says, was something he hadn't expected to need quite so badly: the knowledge that he wasn't carrying this alone.
Ada is 92 now, and she lives with the disease's full weight—the memory loss, the behavioral shifts, the gradual erosion of physical capability. Doug and his twin brother, David, are her primary caregivers, a role that demanded they learn not just how to manage her medical needs but how to live alongside a person who is changing in front of them. The Alzheimer Society connected them with a support group for adult children caring for aging parents, a space where other people understood what it meant to watch someone you love become someone different, and to keep showing up anyway.
"It's the kind of thing that helps you in the journey, and it is a journey because you see things changing," Adams said. "You adapt, and change, and that's good." The group taught him something counterintuitive: that laughter still has a place in this work. Ada's sense of humor, he notes, has actually sharpened since her diagnosis. She has what he calls a wicked wit and a quick mind for a joke, and the permission to laugh with her—rather than only cry about her condition—has become part of how the family moves through their days.
They've learned to keep doing the things Ada loved, just in modified form. She was always someone who enjoyed shopping and eating out, so trips to the mall, to Applebee's for the double-crunch shrimp, to Swiss Chalet for chicken—these have become the texture of their time together. It's caregiving that doesn't feel like caregiving, or at least not only that. "She took good care of us and raised us well," Adams said, "so now it's our turn to help her when she needs it."
The Alzheimer Society's Brandon office, where Adams and his brother found their footing, is one of several access points across Manitoba. Christine Jefferies, the regional coordinator for the Westman region, describes the work as straightforward but essential: listening. When someone calls or walks through the door, Jefferies and her team start with questions, learning the shape of each person's situation, then connecting them to resources tailored to where they are in the journey. The office offers physician-led physical activity programs, sensory items designed for people in later stages of the disease, and multiple support groups—some for people who have received a diagnosis, some for partners, some for adult children, and some that are simply a chance to sit over coffee and talk to someone who understands.
September is World Alzheimer's Month, now in its 15th year, a designation meant to pull dementia out of the shadows and into public conversation. Erin Crawford, the chief executive officer of the Alzheimer Society of Manitoba, frames it as an opportunity to reach people before crisis arrives. "Alzheimer's can be a very isolating disease," she said. The month is a chance to tell Manitobans what to do if they're concerned, where to turn, what support exists. "I hope that people who, in August, didn't know about the Alzheimer's Society, and didn't know what to do if they were concerned, that by the end of September they know what to do."
Jefferies echoes this. Education and awareness matter because dementia touches so many lives—not just the person diagnosed, but everyone around them. "There are so many people that are touched by dementia," she said. "Being a little more educated on how to help somebody in your community going through those changes and knowing some of the resources, we can all do a better job of caring for those folks in the community." Adams, for his part, urges other caregivers to protect their own well-being and to use what the Alzheimer Society offers. Having these services available locally, he said, is not a luxury. It's the difference between isolation and connection, between feeling lost and knowing where to turn.
Citazioni salienti
It's the kind of thing that helps you in the journey, and it is a journey because you see things changing, and you adapt, and change, and that's good.— Doug Adams, caregiver
Alzheimer's can be a very isolating disease. World Alzheimer's Month is really an opportunity for us to try to connect with Manitobans around the subject of Alzheimer's or dementia.— Erin Crawford, CEO of the Alzheimer Society of Manitoba
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