A microscopic flash. In ancient Israel, over three thousand years ago, a single egg cell inside the body of a lady of Bethlehem had just fused its membrane with that of a wriggling cell that's docked to import foreign DNA. A sharp spike in calcium prompted the release of a burst of zinc – hence the microscopic flash. Within the cell, a new nucleus took form, embracing the full forty-six chromosomes. As swift as could be, as the material multiplied, the cell cleaved itself in two, then the next day into four, then the third day into eight, as the whole mass slowly drifted downward from the Fallopian tube. On the sixth day, with some of the sixty-four cells already differentiating themselves from the others, the new organism was ready to produce enzymes to dissolve a hole through its outer protein layer, escaping to implant itself in the nearby uterine lining. By the eighth day, the outermost layer of cells had separated from the inner core, forming an amniotic cavity. By the fourteenth day, a thickening of cells occurred, giving rise to the primitive streak, which set the direction defining future development. In the days after that, cells continued to divide and differentiate into the three primary germ layers: endoderm, mesoderm, ectoderm. Over time, the endoderm developed into the gut lining, the mesoderm developed into organs and bones, the ectoderm became skin and eyes.1 And many years later, in a different environment, the creature originating from that fusion and that growth would sing a psalm, crying out to God: “You knitted me together in my mother's womb!” (Psalm 139:13). “My frame was not hidden from you when I was being made in secret” (Psalm 139:15), “for you formed my inward parts” (Psalm 139:13).
That's the incredible and speedy development from which the psalmist – and, in processes just like it, me and you – began to be. In that instant of the fusion of two cells into one new life, God created a rational soul – we talked about this a couple weeks ago – then and there, to be the form toward which the development of this body was directed. And accordingly, God remained at work, knitting you together, making you in secret, and – as cells further differentiated – forming your outward and inward parts out of the primary germ layers.
The result is remarkable. It's not for nothing that the psalmist marveled: “I am fearfully and wonderfully made!” (Psalm 139:14). And so am I, and so are you. And what that means is, we are made in a way that's just so exceptional, so set apart from everything else, head and shoulders above the rest of God's craftsmanship of the stars and seas, that to recognize it, to realize it, is nothing else but to stand in awe, eyes wide and jaw dropped, even to feel chills and thrills in amazement. It means that the design that went into you can only be fairly viewed with profound astonishment at the holy spectacle set before us, the majesty of our Maker at work, outdoing himself with the masterpiece that puts a universe of miracles to shame. And the masterpiece is you!
Consider this example: From humble origins in a tube formed in the ectoderm in the first month of growth, three sacs gradually form at one end. From there they develop. Splitting into five sacs by the fifth week of life in the womb, the remaining weeks until birth (and beyond) see those sacs develop into a delicate organ that, by adulthood, comes to weigh somewhere between 2.5 and 3.5 pounds. It's soft, like tofu or jelly, and full of folds and wrinkles. It's not the prettiest sight; in fact, the look of it might make you uncomfortable. But it's the most complex organ in the human body. See, it's the human brain. You've got one of those in your skull. Through that soft, wrinkly organ, about four hundred miles of blood vessels carry oxygen to about 191 billion cells. Of those, a bit over half are neurons. Each neuron is incredibly small. Its cell body can be less than a hundredth of a millimeter across. From that body, they stretch many branches called 'dendrites' toward each other, plus a single nerve fiber called an 'axon' that can stretch even all the way down your spine. Each neuron connects to other neurons at synapses, about seven thousand contact points for each. Your brain has several times as many synapses as there are stars in the Milky Way galaxy. And those synapses relay electrical and chemical signals from one neuron to the next, sustaining a network not only in the brain but throughout the entire body.
The psalmist declared: “I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made! Wonderful are your works – my soul knows it very well” (Psalm 139:14). And echoing him, one professor of brain science has simply said: “The human brain is beautiful and complex, delicate yet resilient. … When this brain activity occurs, there is a resulting response such as a physical movement, speech, or recollection of a memory. … It happens seamlessly so that you don't notice it until something goes wrong. The fascinating complexity and efficiency of the brain should prompt us to glorify God along with the psalmist for the beauty of his creation.”2
Among all the activities your beautiful brain supports are memories – and we don't have just one kind. Your brain has multiple interrelated memory systems. On the one hand, there's semantic memory – that's the ability to recall facts, like what time the church service starts. On the other hand, there's episodic memory – that's the ability to recall events, like last year's Christmas cantata. These can be short-term memories, which the brain only stores for hours, or they can be converted into long-term memories, which can be stored for even years or decades. Then there's working memory, or immediate memory – the ability to grasp information while you're actively thinking about it, and it's only meant to last seconds. But also, there's emotional memory – the ability to recall feelings we've had. And finally, there's procedural memory – the ability to implicitly remember how to do a task.3 Even in healthy brains, some memory systems work better than the others – my episodic memory can lag pretty far behind my semantic memory, but for some of you, it might go the other way around. And for all these systems, there are three major processes: encoding, storing, and retrieving the memory.4
And God, in his wisdom, distributed the systems responsible for different abilities throughout the human brain. The brain stem doesn't weigh much at all, but it does a lot. Its upper piece, the midbrain, is linked to seeing, hearing, falling asleep, waking up, and regulating body temperature. Its lower piece, the medulla, has centers that control your breathing, blood pressure, and heart rate. Between those is the middle piece, the pons, which connects to the cerebellum, a structure separate from the rest of the brain which, using the majority of neurons, coordinates fine motor activity and is involved in procedural memory.5 The brain stem links the spinal cord to the rest of the brain, called the cerebrum. The cerebrum has an inner core of white matter, but also an outer core of gray matter called the cerebral cortex. Each half of the cerebrum, left or right, has four basic lobes: frontal (that's in the front), occipital (that's in the back), parietal (that's on top), and temporal (that's on the sides, where your temples are).6 About a third of your cerebral cortex is in the frontal lobes, and they play a role in our sensory inputs, in our working memory's ability to pay attention to things, processing emotion, considering the future, and organizing episodes for encoding into long-term memory.7 But the ordinary process of aging, though, takes a special toll on the frontal lobes.8 The occipital lobes, at the back of your brain, are crucial for processing visual information – recognizing things and placing them in space.9 A smaller chunk of your brain, the parietal lobes at the top, do a lot with motor skills and language and number processing.10 The parietal lobes also play a role in short-term memory.11 And about a fifth of your cerebrum is taken up by the temporal lobes, and they're awfully busy too. The medial part of the temporal lobes, which connect to a structure called the hippocampus because it's shaped like a seahorse, play a vital role in creating new semantic and episodic memories, especially in consolidating short-term memory into long-term memory.12 That's just the simple version, but we're learning more all the time. We still barely understand how the human brain – your brain – can do all the things it apparently does.
For the past month or so, if you've been here, your brain might help you remember that we've been reflecting on dementia, seeking wisdom from the Lord and his word to show us how the gospel carries hope for dementia's sufferers and their caregivers alike. And that hope is all the more necessary when we realize that millions of Americans do experience or will experience dementia, since 14% of people over age 70 have it, including 30%-40% of people over age 85.13 The physical changes from, say, Alzheimer's are now thought to begin in the brain stem, maybe as early as childhood, but somehow God designed the brain to resist them for decades. In fact, plenty of people who live out their lives with no effects are, upon autopsy, discovered to have had all physical markers of Alzheimer's disease.14 But sometimes it does cause disruptions. In later years, it can spread to the structures of the medial temporal lobe, and as the hippocampus deteriorates, the brain weakens in its ability to turn experiences into memories.15 Still, long-term memories from earlier years and procedural memories aren't hurt much there.16 From there it spreads to the lateral temporal lobe to destabilize semantic memory, and the parietal and occipital lobes where it meddles with perceiving visual information.17
But the point of all this is, the systems don't go down all at once. God designed the brain better than that, more resilient than they might've been. He could've given us lower storage limits, but he didn't. He could've made them slower, but he didn't. And he could've put all our eggs in one basket, so that the first sign of dementia would break everything at once, but he didn't. He chose this beautiful complexity to display his glory in us, and though our brains remain vulnerable organs, he gave them ways to compensate for the damage they endure.
So when it comes to our neighbors with dementia (whom God calls us to love like we love ourselves), God chose to leave us with what I'll call 'failsafes' – ways to help them live well before God, and to enjoy at least some of life as they're meant to, even as the disease progresses. So often, when a parent or sibling or spouse or friend starts showing signs of dementia, maybe we might feel a bit helpless, unsure how to adjust when our patterns of assumptions – like them remembering our last conversation, or being able to say just what they mean to say – no longer hold true. But armed with understanding of the brain, we can indeed minister helpfully.
First, they can be helped by patient companionship. People with dementia often have needs they struggle to express, even to themselves, which must be profoundly frustrating. Imagine how it feels to wake up with a full bladder and not remember where the bathroom is, or how it feels to have your words come out all wrong. Is it any wonder that sometimes behavior can seem agitated? But we're counseled to listen attentively to what they might be trying to get across, and to just be with them, patiently, even quietly, and to trust that fruit can grow even in the dark.18
A second help is to help them attend church, where possible. Spiritual dimensions aside, just being in a socially stimulating environment can slow memory loss and support mental function.19 But spiritual life is consistently shown, in every conceivable situation, to cultivate health in life, even the health of the body. So one dementia specialist says that “those who continue to practice their religion, attend church, and maintain their spirituality have been shown to cope better with their mental limitations.”20 Will it always be feasible to help someone with dementia get to church? Maybe not, and that's okay. But is it a vitally beneficial rhythm where possible? Yes.
A third help is reminiscing about old times. In most dementia, “memories from the distant past” are “better remembered than more recent memories.”21 Memories tend to get lost in reverse order of their creation, so someone with dementia might not have consolidated the memory of last week's conversation with you, but they might still recall a good fishing trip from when they were eight years old. And so, as more recent events get harder to talk about, you can just visit the more distant past with them. One expert reminds us that “in helping people with Alzheimer's remember, we must first begin to build upon these older autobiographical memories.”22 Those memories stay clearer, and it feels good to remember, and best of all, Christ was gracious to them then, and that deserves to be talked about. For those who've been believers a long time, episodic memories of years of walking with the Lord – sins forgiven, struggles won, prayers answered, glory glimpsed – are long-term memories. In a way, you could say these stages of dementia are an opportunity for a 'victory lap' – a mental run around the older tracks of God's goodness already run and won.
A fourth help comes from familiar prayers and Bible verses. As semantic memory weakens, so does the ability to call up specific Bible verses on command.23 But our ingrained habits depend primarily on procedural memory rather than episodic memory, and “procedural memory is quite well preserved” even as dementia progresses.24 That's partly why consistent routines and organizational patterns are so helpful: if the process for meeting a need is consistent and orderly, it can be run off procedural memory. So if somebody gets used to finding their day's clothes on the same chair at the same time, procedural memory can help them get it.25 But as one doctor then points out, “The procedural memory system provides a different route for remembering God and practicing faith. It can provide some level of meaning and assurance, even in the midst of the confusion that results from the loss of memories.”26 Another doctor adds that if a person has developed a “regular prayer life” before dementia strikes, then prayer “can become part of one's procedural memory and persist well into dementia.”27 And that's one reason why, at our church, we recite the Apostles' Creed and pray the Lord's Prayer each Sunday, and why I hope they find place in your life between Sundays, too. As other things fade, these recognizable sequences of words and ideas can become tools for your souls. Far from signs of stale spirituality, set prayers can become pillars of stability for the day of storm and gale. And even beyond those formulas, when language becomes a tricky thing, people with dementia can still be aided to pray. One dementia-care chaplain offers the tip that saying “Let us pray” and offering a visual cue like bowing your head and folding your hands can help people with dementia, even in the middle or later stages, to recognize what's going on and, as they're able, to cultivate an awareness of God in prayer.28 You can love somebody with dementia by helping them pray – nothing elaborate or fancy needed, just simple and straight to the point is perfect.
A fifth help comes from using pictures and colors, not just words. As first language and then visual processing are affected, strong colors and images can communicate meaning when words can't. That's why experienced caregivers point out that putting pictures around the house can help people with dementia recognize where to find and put things – a picture of eyeglasses over the nightstand, for example – or that a solid black mat in front of the door might discourage wandering away by simulating a hole, or that a colorful toilet seat can help men with dementia aim.29 Some clinicians add that a to-do list made up of pictures of people to see, places to go, and activities to do can be much more helpful for people with dementia than lists of mere words.30 And so, in much the same way, pictures of the church can communicate the love of God they've felt there over the years.31 It's the same reason why, in the Old Testament, the priest Eleazar made a bronze altar covering “as a reminder to the people of Israel” (Numbers 16:40), or why Joshua made a pile of twelve stones in the Jordan River to “be to the people of Israel a memorial forever” (Joshua 4:7).
A sixth help can come from singing hymns. Emotional memory is resilient: even when you've forgotten details about an event, you might still remember how it made you feel. Those are tied into a different brain structure, the amygdala. That's why certain sights, sounds, and smells can evoke such powerful feelings and help us to remember.32 And we all know the emotional power of a hymn we've sung since childhood, one that's meant a lot to us and helped us express our souls to God. Beyond just the amygdala, hearing music activates brain structures like the basal ganglia and cerebellum that dementia usually lets off easy. Studies even suggest that people with dementia have a better chance of remembering something if you sing it to them instead of say it. But this all goes double for music learned during your youth.33 And so, even for people far along their dementia journey, having once-familiar hymns playing in the background can turn the lonely solitude of the apparent void into a space of worship, as the spirit is reminded and reconnected with God via emotional memories.34
A seventh help can come from the pleasures of creation. Even in the severest stages of dementia, people still are going to like beautiful scenery, pleasant smells, and flavorful foods.35 Paul speaks of “foods that God created to be received with thanksgiving by those who believe and know the truth” (1 Timothy 4:3). So too did God make pleasant smells and beautiful scenes and sounds to be received with thanksgiving by those he's called his own. And there's no reason why, with help, somebody with even severe dementia can't receive and enjoy these things with explicit or just implicit gratitude to the God who made them.
And an eighth help can come from Communion. The familiar smells of bread and grape together will, even just on that level, bring back powerful emotional memories. In the Old Testament, parts of some sacrifices were called 'memorial portions' and burned up (e.g., Leviticus 2:2), so it's not for nothing that Jesus introduces his Communion in similar language: “Do this,” he tells us, “in remembrance of me” (Luke 22:19). Obviously, our experience of it has to be modified in cases where there's a choke risk. But while our brains may struggle to sustain memory, Communion remembers Jesus Christ with the whole self, far more than just the brain. And the spiritual gifts available in Communion are vastly greater than we can understand, bringing gifts and graces that don't depend on how well your brain's systems are working.
Through all these helps, the underlying point is this: God went out of his way to make our bodies so spectacular it's scary. He went to great lengths to give you an incredibly complex, capable, resilient, adaptable brain. That brain is a gift, one we too often take for granted. I know that this morning, even the relatively shallow scientific dip we took into the brain's complexity might have taxed us a bit. But that headache, that boredom, that eyes-glazed-over sensation is a wall between ourselves and wonder. It's the call to ascend a new level in appreciating and knowing God's gift. “Great are the works of the LORD, studied by all who delight in them” (Psalm 111:2)!
And God gave us such a powerful gift partly so that, no matter what disease comes for us or those we know, we would never run out of practical ways to show each other the love he can put in our hearts, especially the love he pours into our hearts by the Holy Spirit who comes from Christ alone (Romans 5:5). Think of it! God gave you a pricelessly powerful brain as an act of love, to aid in your life of love for him and for those around you. “The LORD is righteous in all his ways,” it's written, “and kind in all his works” (Psalm 145:17). He invites us to understand and appreciate our brains partly so we can do that, and show his love in the best ways we can.
But even deeper than that, he invites us to take a good look at our brains and just stand in utter amazement of his workmanship in us, and to give him the glory. God made sure your head would contain an organ so rich and resilient and complex that the most advanced computer designed by scientists can't match all its capacities. In a very real way, the human brain is the greatest marvel in the entirety of God's known and visible creation – more majestic than Mount Everest, more beautiful than a sunset, more profound than any natural mystery we've seen. Doesn't that count as 'fearfully and wonderfully made'? If a team of scientists could manufacture something that genuinely equalled the human brain in every respect, that would be the most precious invention in existence. But you have it, signed by God, less than one inch beneath your scalp, right this very minute. So one brain scientist had to confess: “It is nothing short of a miracle that we remember anything, but the sheer number of things we remember is truly staggering. The process the brain uses to store a memory involves a variety of brain circuits, neurochemicals, and new connections that are formed between neurons. The efficiency of this system is amazing. It should cause us to stop and give praise to God for his magnificent design!”36
“The works of his hands,” says the psalmist, “are faithful and just” (Psalm 111:7). And so, in all things, we can “entrust” our bodies and brains and minds, as well as our souls, “to a faithful Creator” (1 Peter 4:19). God is faithful: he's committed to what he's created. He loves you, and loves your brain. Even when you're running down, whether from normal wear-and-tear or from disease, he remains faithful. The psalmist expresses that truth by saying to God that “in your book were written, every one of them, the days that were formed for me, when as yet there was none of them” (Psalm 139:16). Before ever you implanted in uterine lining, God had already written out the days he'd formed for you. That includes days after you're attacked by disease. For every person with dementia (or anything else), God has already written out that day, his promise that he'll be there to hold them together, still faithfully present with mercy and love. No day can surprise him, because God wrote out his promise for the day of the brain's deterioration before he even formed that brain in the first place. Before your brain even began to develop, God committed to love you. Now that's faithfulness.
That faithfulness is why he sent his Son to take on human flesh and blood. God put the Word of Life into a body with a three-pound brain a lot like yours, and – excepting his sinlessness and our sinfulness – there wasn't much difference on the natural level. The Son of God took a brain like the brain he created in you. And with whatever your brain's complexity can accomplish, he invites you to know and love him as Creator, Redeemer, and Faithful Lover, and to flourish in his grace, and to always be with him (cf. Psalm 139:18). So thank him, praise him, trust him! For great is his failsafe inventiveness – and no less great is his faithfulness.
1 Kevin Coward and Dagan Wells, eds., Textbook of Clinical Embryology (Cambridge University Press, 2013), 100-115.
2 Benjamin T. Mast, Second Forgetting: Remembering the Power of the Gospel During Alzheimer's Disease (Zondervan, 2014), 31.
3 Andrew E. Budson and Paul R. Solomon, Memory Loss, Alzheimer's Disease, and Dementia: A Practical Guide for Clinicians, 2nd ed. (Elsevier, 2016), Appendix C; Mark F. Bear, et al., Neuroscience: Exploring the Brain, 4th ed. (Wolters Kluwer, 2016), 824-829; John Dunlop, Finding Grace in the Face of Dementia (Crossway, 2017), 32-33.
4 Masud Husain and Jonathan Schott, eds., Oxford Textbook of Cognitive Neurology and Dementia (Oxford University Press, 2016), 31.
5 Hans J. ten Donkelaar, Clinical Neuroanatomy: Brain Circuitry and Its Disorders (Springer, 2011), 21-30; Duane E. Haines and Gregory A. Mihailoff, Fundamental Neuroscience for Basic and Clinical Applications, 5th ed. (Elsevier, 2018), 152-158; Ryan Splittgerber, Snell's Clinical Neuroanatomy, 8th ed. (Wolters Kluwer, 2019), 195-214.
6 Duane E. Haines and Gregory A. Mihailoff, Fundamental Neuroscience for Basic and Clinical Applications, 5th ed. (Elsevier, 2018), 227; Ryan Splittgerber, Snell's Clinical Neuroanatomy, 8th ed. (Wolters Kluwer, 2019), 258-259.
7 Gerard Emilien, et al., Memory: Neuropsychological, Imaging, and Psychopharmacological Perspectives (Psychology Press, 2004), 77; Masud Husain and Jonathan Schott, eds., Oxford Textbook of Cognitive Neurology and Dementia (Oxford University Press, 2016), 27; Duane E. Haines and Gregory A. Mihailoff, Fundamental Neuroscience for Basic and Clinical Applications, 5th ed. (Elsevier, 2018), 227-228; Ryan Splittgerber, Snell's Clinical Neuroanatomy, 8th ed. (Wolters Kluwer, 2019), 283-285.
8 R. L. Buckner and J. M. Logan, “Frontal Contributions to Episodic Memory Encoding in the Young and Elderly,” in Amanda Parker, et al., eds., The Cognitive Neuroscience of Memory: Encoding and Retrieval (Psychology Press, 2002), 59-76; and Fergus I. M. Craik, “Effects of Aging on Memory and Attention: A Frontal Lobe Problem?”, in Brian Levine and Fergus I. M. Craik, eds., Mind and the Frontal Lobes: Cognition, Behavior, and Brain Imaging (Oxford University Press, 2012), 183-195.
9 Masud Husain and Jonathan Schott, eds., Oxford Textbook of Cognitive Neurology and Dementia (Oxford University Press, 2016), 59; Duane E. Haines and Gregory A. Mihailoff, Fundamental Neuroscience for Basic and Clinical Applications, 5th ed. (Elsevier, 2018), 231; Ryan Splittgerber, Snell's Clinical Neuroanatomy, 8th ed. (Wolters Kluwer, 2019), 286-287.
10 Masud Husain and Jonathan Schott, eds., Oxford Textbook of Cognitive Neurology and Dementia (Oxford University Press, 2016), 51-52; Duane E. Haines and Gregory A. Mihailoff, Fundamental Neuroscience for Basic and Clinical Applications, 5th ed. (Elsevier, 2018), 228-229; Ryan Splittgerber, Snell's Clinical Neuroanatomy, 8th ed. (Wolters Kluwer, 2019), 283-285.
11 Masud Husain and Jonathan Schott, eds., Oxford Textbook of Cognitive Neurology and Dementia (Oxford University Press, 2016), 56.
12 Gerard Emilien, et al., Memory: Neuropsychological, Imaging, and Psychopharmacological Perspectives (Psychology Press, 2004), 76; Masud Husain and Jonathan Schott, eds., Oxford Textbook of Cognitive Neurology and Dementia (Oxford University Press, 2016), 44.
13 Benjamin T. Mast and Brian P. Yochim, Alzheimer's Disease and Dementia (Hogrefe, 2018), 5.
14 Benjamin T. Mast and Brain P. Yochim, Alzheimer's Disease and Dementia (Hogrefe, 2018), 18-19.
15 Ryan Splittgerber, Snell's Clinical Neuroanatomy, 8th ed. (Wolters Kluwer, 2019), 272.
16 John Dunlop, Finding Grace in the Face of Dementia (Crossway, 2017), 35; Benjamin T. Mast and Brian P. Yochim, Alzheimer's Disease and Dementia (Hogrefe, 2018), 20.
17 Benjamin T. Mast and Brian P. Yochim, Alzheimer's Disease and Dementia (Hogrefe, 2018), 21-22.
18 Colette Bachand-Wood, Do This, Remembering Me: The Spiritual Care of Those with Alzheimer's and Dementia (Morehouse Publushing, 2016), 55-56; John Dunlop, Finding Grace in the Face of Dementia (Crossway, 2017), 61.
19 Andrew E. Budson and Paul R. Solomon, Memory Loss, Alzheimer's Disease, and Dementia: A Practical Guide for Clinicians, 2nd ed. (Elsevier, 2016), 203.
20 John Dunlop, Finding Grace in the Face of Dementia (Crossway, 2017), 55.
21 Gerard Emilien, et al., Memory: Neuropsychological, Imaging, and Psychopharmacological Perspectives (Psychology Press, 2004), 185.
22 Benjamin T. Mast, Second Forgetting: Remembering the Power of the Gospel During Alzheimer's Disease (Zondervan, 2014), 49.
23 Robert Davis, My Journey into Alzheimer's Disease: Helpful Insights for Family and Friends (Tyndale House, 1989), 47.
24 Andrew E. Budson and Paul R. Solomon, Memory Loss, Alzheimer's Disease, and Dementia: A Practical Guide for Clinicians, 2nd ed. (Elsevier, 2016), 200. See also Gerard Emilien, et al., Memory: Neuropsychological, Imaging, and Psychopharmacological Perspectives (Psychology Press, 2004), 189, describing findings that Alzheimer's patients “demonstrated rapid and extensive motor learning across trials, and that this learning was equivalent to that of normal control subjects.” In other words, the ability to learn motor skills – a procedural memory function – was no less in people with dementia than in people without dementia!
25 Andrew E. Budson and Paul R. Solomon, Memory Loss, Alzheimer's Disease, and Dementia: A Practical Guide for Clinicians, 2nd ed. (Elsevier, 2016), 201-202.
26 Benjamin T. Mast, Second Forgetting: Remembering the Power of the Gospel During Alzheimer's Disease (Zondervan, 2014), 49-50.
27 John Dunlop, Finding Grace in the Face of Dementia (Crossway, 2017), 55.
28 Colette Bachand-Wood, Do This, Remembering Me: The Spiritual Care of Those with Alzheimer's and Dementia (Morehouse Publishing, 2016), 46.
29 Colette Bachand-Wood, Do This, Remembering Me: The Spiritual Care of Those with Alzheimer's and Dementia (Morehouse Publushing, 2016), 20.
30 Andrew E. Budson and Paul R. Solomon, Memory Loss, Alzheimer's Disease, and Dementia: A Practical Guide for Clinicians, 2nd ed. (Elsevier, 2016), 202.
31 Colette Bachand-Wood, Do This, Remembering Me: The Spiritual Care of Those with Alzheimer's and Dementia (Morehouse Publushing, 2016), 60.
32 Benjamin T. Mast, Second Forgetting: Remembering the Power of the Gospel During Alzheimer's Disease (Zondervan, 2014), 50. See also, however, Gerard Emilien, et al., Memory: Neuropsychological, Imaging, and Psychopharmacological Perspectives (Psychology Press, 2004), 182-183, which notes the impact of Alzheimer's disease on the amygdala, indicating that “some kind of emotion processing impairment is to be expected” in people affected by Alzheimer's.
33 Andrew E. Budson and Paul R. Solomon, Memory Loss, Alzheimer's Disease, and Dementia: A Practical Guide for Clinicians, 2nd ed. (Elsevier, 2016), 202-203.
34 Colette Bachand-Wood, Do This, Remembering Me: The Spiritual Care of Those with Alzheimer's and Dementia (Morehouse Publishing, 2016), 30.
35 John Dunlop, Finding Grace in the Face of Dementia (Crossway, 2017), 69-70, 129-130.
36 Benjamin T. Mast, Second Forgetting: Remembering the Power of the Gospel During Alzheimer's Disease (Zondervan, 2014), 46.
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