• Home
  • About
    ▼
    • What is Graphic Medicine?
    • Graphic Medicine International Collective
      ▼
      • GMIC Board Resources
    • Website Team
    • Related Sites
      ▼
      • Medicina Grafica
      • Japanese Graphic Medicine Association
      • Graphic Medicine Italia
      • Pathographics
  • Latest
    ▼
    • News
    • The Graphic Medicine Award
    • The Drawing Together Archive
    • Frontline Workers Comics Project
    • Spotlight Archive
  • Reviews
    ▼
    • All
    • Editor’s Picks
    • Graphic Novels
    • Educational
    • Manga
    • Write A Review!
  • Conferences
    ▼
    • 2023 Toronto Conference
    • 2022 Chicago Conference
    • 2021 UnConvention (Virtual) Conference
    • 2020 Toronto Conference
    • 2019 Brighton Conference
    • 2018 Vermont Conference
    • 2017 Seattle Conference
      ▼
      • Home
      • Program
      • Registration (NOW CLOSED)
      • Lodging in Seattle
      • 2017 Seattle Conference Sponsors
      • Call for Art
      • Press/Media Inquiries
    • 2016 Dundee Conference
    • 2015 Riverside Conference
    • 2014 Baltimore Conference
      ▼
      • Home
      • Program 2014
        ▼
        • Program 2014
        • Keynote Speakers 2014
        • Marketplace 2014
        • Juried Exhibit 2014
        • Call for Papers 2014 (closed)
      • Accommodation & Travel 2014
        ▼
        • Accommodation & Travel 2014
        • Additional hotel suggestions
      • Sponsors 2014
      • Baltimore Restaurants & Attractions
      • FAQs 2014
      • Registration 2014 (closed)
    • 2013 Brighton Conference
    • 2012 Toronto Conference
    • 2011 Chicago Conference
    • 2010 London Conference
  • MultiMedia
    ▼
    • Podcasts
    • A Graphic Medicine Conversation with Sam Hester
    • Graphic Medicine Video Archive
    • Graphic Medicine Exhibits
  • Resources
    ▼
    • The Peter James Burns Scholarship Fund
    • Essential Graphic Medicine: An Annotated Bibliography
    • COVID-19 Comics
    • Reproductive Freedom Comics
    • Frontline Workers Comics Project
    • The Drawing Together Archive
    • National Library of Medicine Graphic Medicine Exhibit
    • Liaison Program
    • Publishers
    • RESEARCH
    • TEACHING
    • GRAPHIC MEDICINE CONFAB ARCHIVE
  • Merch/Support
    ▼
    • Bookshop Store
    • 2021 Un-Convention MERCH
    • 2022 Conference Merch
    • RedBubble Store
    • DONATE
  • Contact
    ▼
    • Contact Form/Email
    • Social Media
Graphic Medicine
  • Home
  • About
    • What is Graphic Medicine?
    • Graphic Medicine International Collective
      • GMIC Board Resources
    • Website Team
    • Related Sites
      • Medicina Grafica
      • Japanese Graphic Medicine Association
      • Graphic Medicine Italia
      • Pathographics
  • Latest
    • News
    • The Graphic Medicine Award
    • The Drawing Together Archive
    • Frontline Workers Comics Project
    • Spotlight Archive
  • Reviews
    • All
    • Editor’s Picks
    • Graphic Novels
    • Educational
    • Manga
    • Write A Review!
  • Conferences
    • 2023 Toronto Conference
    • 2022 Chicago Conference
    • 2021 UnConvention (Virtual) Conference
    • 2020 Toronto Conference
    • 2019 Brighton Conference
    • 2018 Vermont Conference
    • 2017 Seattle Conference
      • Home
      • Program
      • Registration (NOW CLOSED)
      • Lodging in Seattle
      • 2017 Seattle Conference Sponsors
      • Call for Art
      • Press/Media Inquiries
    • 2016 Dundee Conference
    • 2015 Riverside Conference
    • 2014 Baltimore Conference
      • Home
      • Program 2014
        • Program 2014
        • Keynote Speakers 2014
        • Marketplace 2014
        • Juried Exhibit 2014
        • Call for Papers 2014 (closed)
      • Accommodation & Travel 2014
        • Accommodation & Travel 2014
        • Additional hotel suggestions
      • Sponsors 2014
      • Baltimore Restaurants & Attractions
      • FAQs 2014
      • Registration 2014 (closed)
    • 2013 Brighton Conference
    • 2012 Toronto Conference
    • 2011 Chicago Conference
    • 2010 London Conference
  • MultiMedia
    • Podcasts
    • A Graphic Medicine Conversation with Sam Hester
    • Graphic Medicine Video Archive
    • Graphic Medicine Exhibits
  • Resources
    • The Peter James Burns Scholarship Fund
    • Essential Graphic Medicine: An Annotated Bibliography
    • COVID-19 Comics
    • Reproductive Freedom Comics
    • Frontline Workers Comics Project
    • The Drawing Together Archive
    • National Library of Medicine Graphic Medicine Exhibit
    • Liaison Program
    • Publishers
    • RESEARCH
    • TEACHING
    • GRAPHIC MEDICINE CONFAB ARCHIVE
  • Merch/Support
    • Bookshop Store
    • 2021 Un-Convention MERCH
    • 2022 Conference Merch
    • RedBubble Store
    • DONATE
  • Contact
    • Contact Form/Email
    • Social Media
Home / Comic Reviews / Aliceheimer’s: Alzheimer’s Through the Looking Glass

Aliceheimer’s: Alzheimer’s Through the Looking Glass

  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • Pinterest

Author: Dana Walrath

Format: paperback

Pages: 80 pages

Publish Date: 2016

Publisher: Penn State University Press

Catalog ID: ISBN: 9780271074689

Where to buy: https://bookshop.org/a/1457/9780271074689

Author website: http://www.danawalrath.com

Review

Guest Review by Erin Partridge

Several artists and writers have utilized the graphic novel or combined written and visual narratives to cover aging and diseases of later life: Roz Chast’s Can’t We Talk About Something More Pleasant? and Wrinkles by Paco Roca come to mind. There is something different and far more intimate about Aliceheimer’s. Dana Walrath uses images to process both the difficulty and also the joys of bringing her mother to live in her little farmhouse for several years as the Alzheimer’s progressed. The description of her creative process is so rich—it gives great meaning to the finished book we hold in our hands as readers; knowing about all the different layers and symbolic processes imbues the work with greater depth. 

Through short vignettes and collaged images, Walrath shares her personal experiences as a means to explain and explore what it is like to live with someone with Alzheimer’s. Readers coping with similar circumstances in their own families might gain some useful tips about how to support independence and how to preserve dignity. Though she covers some of the difficult situations, she also shares the moments of humor and unexpected beauty. The book does not deny the severity of the disease; the emotional and interpersonal wounds are well-covered. But Alice is a whole person, and is treated as such throughout the book. By the end, the reader has a sense for who Alice was and who she became and perhaps wishes to have met her, even briefly.

The world is so lucky that Walrath took on this “hard job” of working through the “unfinished business” with her mother. The raw honesty in the images and words bring humanity to the disease so often talked about in catastrophic terms. As science and medicine address treatment and hopefully cures for dementia, we need to ensure we are also tending to the human relationships impacted and changed through Alzheimer’s and other dementias—revising the story as Walrath says.

Erin Partridge, PhD, ATR-BC is a board-certified, registered art therapist and researcher based in California. She is interested in the use of images to express our experiences and the use of images as a form of data.

Leave a Comment Cancel reply

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

About Graphic Medicine

Graphic Medicine is a site that explores the interaction between the medium of comics and the discourse of healthcare. We are a community of academics, health carers, authors, artists, and fans of comics and medicine. The site is maintained by an editorial team under the direction of the Graphic Medicine International Collective.

Subscribe to Graphic Medicine

Join our email list to keep up with the latest Graphic Medicine news!
  • This field is for validation purposes and should be left unchanged.

Visit Our Sister Site for Spanish Readers

Visit Our Sister Site for Japanese Readers

Visit Our Sister Site for Italian Readers

Visit the Pathographics Project

© 2007 - 2023 Graphic Medicine International Collective

WordPress Developer