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This episode is about the connection between stress and Alzheimer’s disease progression, and the specific ways we’ve changed how we communicate with our mom Rosemary to help lower her stress.

We start with a short update on the small logistical things that came up this week — mom scheduling her own doctor’s appointment and using shared medical portal access so she doesn’t have to re-explain results, and a reset of our system for managing her supplement refills across four people.

Then we get into the research: in a healthy brain, the hippocampus signals the body to stand down after a stress response, but the hippocampus is one of the first regions damaged by Alzheimer’s, so that off-switch doesn’t work the same way. This means cortisol stays elevated longer, which further damages the hippocampus, creating a cycle. We also talk about how Alzheimer’s affects the prefrontal cortex’s ability to separate the source of an emotional trigger from its target, meaning a loved one raising their voice at the TV or being frustrated about an unrelated situation can still register in an Alzheimer’s patient’s brain as a direct threat.

We share specific examples of how this showed up with our mom, including a genuinely difficult conversation about our dad’s tone of voice, and how something as simple as an unplanned password reset or a disrupted morning routine could affect her for the rest of the day. We also talk through what worked, including how we approached a family trip to Disney World with her routine, food, and cognitive load in mind, and end with a practical list of communication strategies for lowering stress with someone who has Alzheimer’s: keeping tone positive and reassuring, letting go of small mistakes instead of revisiting them, giving space to find words without rushing in, and not carrying tension from one moment into the next.

Articles referenced in the show about lowering the stress on alzheimers:

• https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/8315237/
  
  
• https://www.nia.nih.gov/health/alzheimers-changes-behavior-and-communication/communicating-someone-who-has-alzheimers

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Thanks for walking this journey with us. Conversations Through Alzheimer's is hosted by sisters Amber and Felicia, and new episodes drop every Monday through September 2026.

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Support the Alzheimer's Association by joining our Walk to End Alzheimer's team or donating: https://act.alz.org/site/TR/Walk2026/NY-WesternNewYork?pg=team&team_id=1057467&fr_id=19818