The Slow Downward Spiral ; Ringwood Family Pitches in for Mom

Summary

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"When everyone was losing their head, my mother would take control," says Joyce Miller of her mom, Mary Ring, the daughter of Italian immigrants. "My mother was such a strong, take-charge Sicilian."

But then, in the mid-1990s, there were subtle signs something was amiss. "We started noticing that she wasn't able to do the checkbook anymore. And she'd been a great cook, but she was leaving main ingredients out," says Joyce, adding that doctors initially suspected depression. "Within the year, things got worse, and she started getting lost while she was driving."

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Extract

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The Slow Downward Spiral ; Ringwood Family Pitches in for Mom

In 1998, neurological tests revealed that Mary was in the early stages of Alzheimer's disease. Since that diagnosis, Joyce and her ...

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