GLOBAL HEALTH & DEVELOPMENT

editor's note

Wambūi Karanja was a teenager when her dad began having memory issues. He was a teacher, then in his 50s. It turned out he had early onset dementia.

Now 32, Karanja has learned a lot about being a caregiver -- and forged a career helping others in the same situation. Her trainings for caregivers in Kenya, where she lives, won her a "One to Watch" award from the Alzheimer's Association.

I interviewed her after she got that honor. It was an emotional conversation -- shadowed by her father's situation and by my own family's experience: My wife has dementia.

For those thrust into the role of caregiver for a loved one with dementia, Karanja offers support and encouragement. People sometimes say "it's just normal aging." Someone said that her dad had been bewitched. She proposes responding to such comments by noting that dementia is a disease of the brain -- so people can  understand what is really happening. 

A key message she shares: To be a good caregiver, you need to pay attention to your own well-being. 

Thinking of what is lost when a family member has dementia, she wiped a tear from her eye -- and brought a tear to my eye. “I [can’t] stand listening to my friends complain about their dads, because I don't get to experience my dad the same way you get to experience yours,” she says. “It's a very lonely thing.”

Read the story here.

NPR has also posted an Instagram reel of our interview. Watch it here.

Marc Silver
Editor, global health and development

P.S. Dear readers, the newsletter will take next week off for the spring holidays. We'll return the following week.