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The Smell of Hope: Uncovering a Secret Weapon Against Cognitive Decline
Harnessing the power of scent to ward off dementia
I lost my grandfather to Alzheimer’s.
It was a slow and grueling decay, like watching an old oak tree crumble beneath its own weight as termites devoured it from within.
Over several long years, stately war vet withered into a confused, quarrelsome invalid who bore little semblance to the grandfather I so dearly admired.
And that was the worst part: it didn’t just rob him of his own memories, but it poisoned the ones I had left of him, too.
Over time, I (and my family) slowly lost sight of the loving grandfather who once stood in the place of this strange, feeble man, and unconsciously began reconstruct a new person from the eroded shreds of his character.
Of course, I still clung to my precious inner archive of gatherings past, but couldn’t shake the truth that the same grandfather who spent breezy summer afternoons riding bikes with me and hooking worms at the fishing pond was no longer with me. The spark behind his eyes had been smothered, and once the final embers of his former self extinguished, I mourned his passing — long before his body was even buried.
