About the Show
The Forgetting: A Portrait of Alzheimer's is a two-hour special aimed
at helping people better understand and cope with the fearsome disease of Alzheimer's.
The
cornerstone of the project is a 90-minute documentary based on David Shenk's
best-selling book The Forgetting. Like Shenk's book, the documentary
is a dramatic, compassionate, all-encompassing
look at Alzheimer's that weaves together the history and biology of the disease,
the intense real-world experiences of Alzheimer's patients and caregivers,
and the race to find a cure.
The documentary is followed by Alzheimer's: The Help You Need, a half-hour
program hosted by David Hyde Pierce that features top Alzheimer's experts
from around the nation. No matter what your relationship to Alzheimer's, the
follow-up show will outline what you need to know about Alzheimer's and where
you can turn for help.
Air Date
The Forgetting premiered on PBS in January 2004. Find out if it's airing again on your local station.
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Watch a clip from The Forgetting: [ 56k broadband ]
About the Book that Inspired the Documentary
David Shenk was inspired to write The Forgetting after overhearing
a restaurant conversation about a man and his wife, a woman in her 50's
stricken by Alzheimer's disease. When Shenk realized that the woman couldn't
recognize her own husband, he was horrified. By the time the author left
the restaurant, he was sobbing at the mere thought of his wife becoming
a total stranger during what should be the best years of their marriage.
Back in his office, he was determined to know more about the disease that had
gripped his imagination so completely. His search led him to a complex, fascinating
pool of stories that immediately immersed him.
The result was The Forgetting: Alzheimer's - Portrait of an
Epidemic,
a dense and impassioned snapshot of Alzheimer's many faces. In the book,
Shenk recounts intensely personal tales, past and present, of living with Alzheimer's
and reveals the forces behind the growing epidemic and equally
fierce
race
for a cure. Shenk confronts readers with what memory means to the human condition
and what the disease will mean to each of us in the future.
About the Producer
The Forgetting's producer, Elizabeth Arledge, has been a respected documentary
producer, writer, and director for over 20 years. She has produced for prominent
shows such as Frontline, NOVA, and CBS news and has received many prestigious
honors, including the Christopher Award
for the 1995 series "Discovering Women," the
OWL award for WNET's "Live Long and Prosper," and multiple
science awards for her NOVA programs, "Surviving AIDS" (1999) and "Cracking
the Code of Life" (2001).
She has also been nominated for two National Emmys and a Writer's Guild
Award.
Ms. Arledge loves documenting people's stories for PBS, because she gets
to tell personal stories honestly, without commercial
pressures. Says Arledge, "Medical science documentaries are particularly
rewarding because they offer viewers important information and hope about very
difficult situations. The combination of intellectual, personal and artistic
fulfillment is, for me, the perfect job."
