Author: Dietrich Grönemeyer
Dietrich Grönemeyer
Reading time: 19 minutes
Synopsis
Dietrich Grönemeyer’s book Demenz (2025) talks about a difficult event. Many people fear it, even when they are young. When the brain gets weaker, people with the condition and their families face new and often hard challenges. Learn here what dementia is, how to prevent it, and how to live with it.
What you will learn: A clear guide to dementia.
Dementia can make people confuse things, forget, and even lose their sense of self. It is one of the most common illnesses. Many people, especially older ones, fear losing control and who they are. But a diagnosis of dementia is not the end of life. You can still live a good life with dignity. In the early stages, you can even slow down how fast the illness gets worse.
So, it is good to look at dementia clearly and not be overly scared. Many of us will be affected by it sooner or later. We might get sick ourselves or need to care for family members with dementia. So, it is a good idea to learn about it now. That is what we do in this summary. Are you ready to learn about it? Let’s start.
Blink 1 – A group of illnesses with many forms
Dementia. This word often sounds like a simple label. People might say someone is “not quite ‘there’.” But this word actually describes a whole group of diseases. These diseases change the brain and, with it, the whole person. Dementia is more than just forgetting. It is a slow process of losing touch with the world. Dementia can make known people become strangers. It can make familiar places feel dangerous. It can also bring back old hurts from the past. But even if the person changes because of this illness, they are still a full person with rights and dignity.
If you want to understand dementia, you should first see how people with it experience it. From the inside, the illness feels like a thick fog that comes and goes. One day, a grandmother recognizes her grandchild and tells jokes. The next day, she might want to chase him away with a kitchen knife. Sometimes, people with dementia become kinder and softer. But sometimes, old, unhealed trauma can surface. This trauma may have been pushed away for decades. Then, there can be bouts of crying or anger. Yet, people with dementia are not “broken.” If you talk to them as if they are drunk or a small child, you miss that their experiences and life story are still part of them.
It is also important to know that dementia comes in different types. Alzheimer’s disease is the most common. It often starts quietly, with small memory problems around age seventy. People mix up names, forget routes, or miss appointments. The cause is certain proteins that build up in the brain. These proteins stop nerve cells from talking to each other. There is also vascular dementia. Here, problems with blood flow hurt the brain.
Lewy body dementia is a tricky type. Here, the person’s condition changes a lot. One day, the father is almost like his old self. The next, he sees wild animals in the bathroom. There are often also problems with movement, like Parkinson’s disease. Then there is frontotemporal dementia. This often affects people between their mid-forties and mid-sixties. Here, the personality changes first, not the memory. A kind person suddenly seems cold, without limits, hurtful, or uncaring. Others slowly lose their ability to speak.
All these forms are called primary dementias. This means the problem is directly in the brain. Besides these primary forms, there are secondary dementias. Here, the brain is not the cause, but it is affected. Metabolism problems can really hurt thinking and focus. Examples are an underactive thyroid, badly managed diabetes, or liver or kidney problems. Another reason can be a strong lack of Vitamin B1 or B12. This can happen from a poor diet, drinking too much alcohol for a long time, or gut problems. Such a lack can lead to serious thinking problems. These problems look like Alzheimer’s, but have different causes. Long-term alcohol abuse, certain medicines, toxins, infections like HIV or Lyme disease, brain tumors, or high pressure in the brain: all these can cause symptoms that look like dementia.
The key point is that secondary dementias can often be treated or even cured. But if they are quickly called Alzheimer’s, people lose the chance to get better. So, if you see the first signs of dementia, it is always worth looking more closely. A family doctor or a brain doctor can check vitamin levels, measure inflammation, and check metabolism and organs.
No matter what type of dementia it is, it usually attacks the hippocampus first. This part is in the temple area of the head. It is like the gate for new information. Here, new routes, names, faces, and appointments are sorted and sent on. If it is affected, someone might not find their way home from the supermarket. But old childhood stories are still clear and bright. As dementia gets worse, not only the ‘entrance gates’ get stuck, but also the ‘doors’ to long-term memories. If this happens, the person might not remember if they have children or where they lived. Their sense of self slowly breaks down.
This explains why knowing facts often goes away early, but feelings last for a surprisingly long time. The brain parts that handle emotions often work much longer than the memory for simple facts. A woman with dementia forgets what her son said within five minutes. But she feels very clearly if he was annoyed, loving, or uncaring. This is an important key in daily life. Even if someone seems not to understand anything anymore, it means a lot if you talk to them kindly and hold their hand. This is because the feeling of connection stays, even if reality has become fragile.
So much for the types of dementia and how they progress. In the next section, we will look at what is currently happening in research and treatment.
Blink 2 – What’s New in Dementia Research and Treatment
Let’s say this first: there is no magic pill for dementia. Treatment is like a complex puzzle. Many small parts must fit together to make a clear picture. Yet, research has found some ways to fight dementia more directly.
One example is Lecanemab. This new Alzheimer’s medicine works directly on the harmful protein build-ups in the brain. It marks these protein clumps so the brain’s ‘cleaner cells’ can remove them better. This sounds like a big step. But in reality, there are many ‘buts’. It only works at a very early stage. It can only slow down the disease for a few months. It is also very expensive. So, yes, we can change how the disease develops. But dementia cannot be simply cured by medicine.
The causes of dementia are very complex. One patient has a brain full of protein build-ups and stays mentally clear. Another has few build-ups and can’t find the bathroom anymore. Why is this? Research suggests that education and an active mind make the brain stronger. But long-term stress and unhealed trauma weaken the hippocampus. This greatly increases the risk of dementia.
The shingles vaccine could also be very important for fighting dementia in the future. A large study in Wales showed that 79-year-olds who had a Zostavax shingles vaccine had about a 20 percent lower risk of dementia seven years later. The vaccine likely controls the varicella-zoster virus. This virus stays in our nerve cells after chickenpox. It can attack the brain years later.
Another area of research looks at the immune system. Quiet inflammation in the body comes from a poor diet or pollution like fine dust or microplastics. These keep the immune system on alert. They also seem to damage the brain over time. So, the good news is that dementia can also be affected by a healthy lifestyle.
Here, there are many things we can change. For example, untreated poor eyesight increases the risk of mental decline. So, the right glasses or early surgery can help keep your mind fit for longer. Well-managed blood sugar protects the sensitive blood vessels in the brain. It stops diabetes from adding to the risk. Someone who drinks a lot of alcohol for a long time harms nerve cells and loses brain power. Drinking less helps the brain. And depression in older age can make mental decline faster. So, treating it not only improves mood but also keeps thinking skills stable.
Blink 3 – Preventing Dementia: Food, Exercise, and Relationships for a Strong Brain
The early stage is key for preventing dementia. The brain can still learn then. It can make new connections between nerve cells. Exercise, healthy food, and active relationships can help with this.
Exercise is like a shield for the brain. It does not have to be a marathon. Even slow Tai Chi can make frail old people seem light and free, like butterflies. Or playing table tennis, where the head has to decide in milliseconds: where is the ball coming from, where should it go back? Such complex movements improve blood flow and activate the hippocampus. This is the area that is affected early in dementia. At the same time, exercise helps you sleep better. And during deep sleep, the brain cleans up. It sorts memories and gets rid of harmful protein waste. Every step on the stairs, every walk, and every dance in front of the bathroom mirror is dementia prevention in daily life.
The second key for preventing dementia is food. The brain needs light, vitamins, minerals, omega-3 fatty acids, and amino acids. These help it make brain chemicals, repair cells, and fight inflammation. Fresh vegetables of many colors, beans, nuts, good oil, and fish now and then are the base for a healthy brain. The blood sugar roller coaster is also dangerous. High blood sugar causes inflammation. This, in turn, can hurt blood vessels and nerve cells. So, a low-sugar diet is good for the brain and also lowers the risk of heart attack.
Right now, research places special hope in a group of substances called flavonoids. They are plant compounds. They are mainly found in berries, apples, and dark chocolate. Flavonoids are very good at fighting damage and inflammation. A large, long-term US study with 77,000 people showed that a diet rich in flavonoids can lower the risk of dementia by about 20%. A study from New York is especially interesting. There, flavonoids from cocoa slowed down mental decline. The brain function of some study participants even got better again.
The third key for preventing dementia is social contact and being part of a community. Loneliness makes thinking tired. But a strong network of family, friends, and neighbors always gives us new things to think about. Shared meals, talks while washing dishes, card games at the kitchen table, video calls with grandchildren: all these keep the language center, attention, and emotions active. Music and creative activities are like turbo-boosters. Someone who sings, dances, paints, tries new cake recipes, or does crafts with grandchildren keeps the brain fit and strong.
Of course, no one is completely safe from dementia. Even people who eat healthy, exercise, and keep their friendships can get sick. Yet, many small, caring choices in daily life can at least make dementia less severe. And besides that, they also make life noticeably better and richer.
In the next and final section, we will look at how a good life is possible even with dementia.
Blink 4 – Accepting Change: Living with Dementia
What do you do when worry has turned into certainty? What if a dementia diagnosis is final? The first step is to change how you see things. The sick person does not need to change. The healthy people around them do. A brain changed by dementia simply cannot do some things anymore. It is like how you cannot understand quantum physics in two minutes. It does not matter how loudly someone explains it to you. A small child cannot fix a clock. And a person with dementia might not be able to shop alone. If you put pressure on people with dementia, they will almost always feel fear, anger, and withdraw. It is more helpful to play along with the person’s amazing ideas. It is better to accept their changed reality.
In this different world, feelings are more important than facts. If a father shouts “Murderer!” in the shower, he might really be in a trench in his mind. Then, it can help to just sit with him. Talk to him like a comrade. And later, bring him back to everyday life with coffee and cake. You don’t help a person with dementia by correcting them. You help by taking their feelings seriously. If you react with kindness and patience, you build a bridge. The person with dementia can cross this bridge, even in moments of great confusion.
The seeming chaos in daily life also gets new meaning when you understand the illness. A chocolate bar under the pillow, keys in the fridge, underwear over trousers – all this shows how executive functions are breaking down. This means the ability to use things purposefully and logically. Mixed-up words and slips of the tongue are also part of this. Here too, it is important not to lose your sense of humor. If you play along instead of scolding, you protect the person’s dignity. And often, you also protect your relationship with them.
Of course, some safety measures need to be put in place. For example, people with dementia should not drive a car. Patients who often wander off might need a GPS tracker around their neck. Or they might need a note with their address in their pocket.
Family members must learn to accept that it is not their job to cure or stop everything. But it is their job to ease the bitterness of the illness a little. They can do this by not fighting the person’s imaginary world, but by living in it with them a little.
Summary
This is the end of our summary of Dementia by Dietrich Grönemeyer. We hope you got some ideas from it. We also hope you have a good overview of this important topic. Finally, we want to give you one last thought: In an aging society like ours, dementia will become a bigger focus for public attention. Many older people also mean many potential dementia patients. We must care for and protect them. And for all of them, what should be clear for everyone else also applies: Their dignity is sacred.
As a society and as individuals, we must find an open and caring way to deal with dementia. This is because the moment we stop being afraid of it, we will find the strength to create practical solutions. This is a problem that affects us all. As long as there is no magic pill for dementia, we need a lot of patience, humor, and kindness to fight it. We need it for ourselves and for the people we love.
With that, goodbye and see you next time!
Source: https://www.blinkist.com/https://www.blinkist.com/de/books/demenz-de