by Brittney Williams

Last week, I sat alone in a back row in the Michigan Theater, watching a special screening of Still Alice that was put together by the Alzheimer’s Association. Still Alice, which is based on a book of the same name, tells the story of a Columbia professor who is diagnosed with early-onset Alzheimer’s at the age of 50. When I found out about the movie about a year ago, I remember being elated to hear that finally, a story focusing on early-onset Alzheimer’s was being told. Often, Alzheimer’s is shown in media as a disease that only affects older people, or sometimes not even as a disease at all, but as a normal part of the later stages of aging, which it is not. My experience—and the experiences of millions of others, who have loved ones diagnosed at younger ages than usual—tells a very different story. My mother was 49 when diagnosed, and 54 when she passed away in 2013.