This dementia victim was one of my teen heroes
When Glen Campbell’s mellow tunes made the hit parade when I was in the eighth grade, I dreamed that I could play and sing like he did.
With my pre-adolescent fantasies, I styled my hair with an open curve over my forehead just the way he did. I even took up playing the folk guitar that year – a practice that I enjoy even today.
I haven’t yet learned how to play “Wichita Lineman,” “Galveston,” or “Rhinestone Cowboy.” But my memories were brought back when I learned that the country music legend had Alzheimer’s Disease and passed away from it in 2017. I was impressed at how his wife Kim took up the cause of letting others know about the disease and working for a cure for it.
When he stepped onto the stage during a performance of his last concert tour, his family was apprehensive that the demands that a musical performance would tax his abilities.
Campbell had been diagnosed shortly before with Alzheimer’s, and had been experiencing the expected difficulties of this form of dementia. His wife Kim had to help him change his shirt. He once mistook pictures of his family that hung on a wall for real people.
And yet when he played his music that day he came to life, with many of his faculties returning.
Playing music sharpened his mind
“Glen played and sang all his classics from memory, even taking extensive solos,” recalls music therapist and Concetta Tomaino, who is also the co-founder of the Institute for Music and Neurologic Function.
“Then there were the newer songs where he needed to glance at a teleprompter for the lyrics. What was striking, though, was what I observed six months later at another concert in his tour. During one of his new songs, as he got to the bridge section, he glanced over at Ashley and said ‘I love this part’ – he was anticipating, thinking ahead – a very difficult task for someone with dementia. Not only had being on the road – with all of its intense performance demands – preserved Glen’s musical skills, it helped him form new memories as well.”
Glen passed away more than six years after being diagnosed with Alzheimer’s. His wife Kim, however, carried on Glen’s desire to let others know about Alzheimer’s by working with various Alzheimer’s-related organizations.
Three Christmas ghosts
Three months after Glen’s death, she wrote a fictional account of a visit from three spirits who represented Christmas past, present and future. While the spirits of Christmas past and present brought back happy and bittersweet memories for her, the spirit of Christmas future envisioned a press conference at which was announced the discovery of a drug that prevents Alzheimer’s in people who have the ApoE4 gene.
Kim said,
“My ghostly visitors had filled me with hope and optimism for the future and made me more determined than ever to continue Glen’s fight to raise awareness and find a cure so that no family would ever have to lose a loved one to dementia again!”
Kim maintains a blog Careliving.org, at which she offers companionship and guidance through the journey of caregiving.
