Full Circle Festival

Talk by medical anthropologist Dana Walrath. Through stories from her award winning graphic memoir series, Dana speaks about the power of graphic narratives to heal and support people living with dementia. Drawing on concepts from medical anthropology, she offers an alternative view about a degenerative disease usually described only in terms of loss and frustration. Aliceheimer’s offers lightness, humor, and various practical approaches families can use as their loved ones gradually enter an altered reality. Dana describes how individuals with dementia retain humor, intelligence, and compassion long after loss of memory and reversion to childhood.