Paula Wolfert is a writer and cookbook author who called on her culinary expertise to battle against Alzheimer’s disease.

She is 78 years old and lives in California. She has written about Mediterranean food for 4 decades very successfully: Paula has published 9 cooking books and has won numerous awards including 5 James Beard’s. Paula Wolfert says that she is interested in “real food” as opposed to those recipes that are made to look fast and easy. She wants to really explain to her readers how to make authentic dishes. To accomplish this, she has travelled to several countries and asked to learn from the best local chefs.

Wolfert started to suspect that she had neurological problems many years ago when she was touring for her most recent book. She couldn’t quite put her finger on the issue but she felt she had memory problems.

Bill Bayer, her husband, says that at first he was in denial and just associated her memory loss with age. He also admires how Wolfert reacted with incredible courage to the news, she started reading all she could about slowing the progression of Alzheimer’s and turned to the thing she knew best: food.

She makes food with the main ingredients she believes helps prevent further cognitive decline such as leafy greens, avocado, nuts, blueberries or coconut. Not all these ingredients are scientifically proven to boost brain function but Paula says that she has never felt better so even if it’s hard and not particularly tasty that is how Wolfert battles her disease.

Paula says that the main message she wants to pass on is that the shame that people have about their memory loss and the denial that exists is terrible because by the time they realize and admit to have Alzheimer’s it’s too late to do anything about it. And it is for this reason that people with Alzheimer’s have to come out and say, “I have Alzheimer’s but I’m still here and I need help”.

In conclusion this video shows an incredibly courageous and talented woman who battles against her disease with what she loves to do which is cooking.

Camila, 2TSA

Everything doesn’t change overnight, Life goes on and, in the interest of all, it must continue as normal and as long as possible.

We often look at the top of the extreme images that match the terminal phase of the disease. But before that, they usually have a slow evolution.

This should not cut off our relationships with our usual activities as soon as we learn the diagnosis. A rich and varied social life is one of the best weapons against the disease. We don’t have to change these habits; we must pursue our passions as long as we can.

There are many opportunities to relax, to get fun, get away from your worries, to develop other forms of expression such as cooking like Paula, or other passions such as music, dance, art etc.

Having Alzheimer's disease is a little less powerful than before, but we still have resources.

Managing the disease, being organized and having small ways to remember everything without necessarily getting upset.

We can for example, have a calendar and mark the slightest details appointments, like birthdays, and we can also have a small notebook and note everything that seems important to us or to our family or our friends in order to never forget.  We can also install a huge clock which gives the date not to forget the time and date. We can put wake-up calls so we can remember to do shopping or lunch with friends.

There are lots of very simple ways to make our lives easier . But it all depends on the phase you are currently on in the disease. It is a disease that evolves slowly, but this does not mean that we won't live our whole lives almost normally.

There will come a time when we are able to even use our means, we will forget our memories, it can happen and in this case we will be cut from the world, and we won't be able to communicate with people.

But we must not think that this disease is our fault, we must not feel guilty of anything.
In this case one must know solutions that's to say yes when we need somebody to help us, and especially to be surrounded by our family is very important even if we begin to forget them.

Never lower your arms.

Maylis & Silvia, 2TSA