BY DANIEL GAITAN | daniel@lifemattersmedia.org

Poking fun at people living with dementia isn’t funny or cutting-edge comedy – it’s mean.

That’s a message that certified art therapist Theresa Dewey hopes will resonate beyond her recent program at the NorthShore and University of Chicago Hospice and Palliative Care Symposium. Dewey works with patients unable to dress, bathe or even speak because of the insidious disease.

“Somehow in 2016, it is still okay to mock this horrible disease and somebody affected by it,” she told an audience of medical professionals and caregivers at the Chicago Botanic Garden. “It’s okay to laugh at the expense of someone who is having a senior moment in a movie. It’s okay to joke about someone who is ‘losing it’ on TV. Why is this okay?”

This cruel and all too common vein of comedy shames people experiencing cognitive decline and contributes to the stigma that those with dementia are stupid, a waste of space or a burden, Dewey said. Fear of being ostracized leads almost a quarter of those afflicted to conceal their diagnosis.

Dementia frequently carries with it a unparalleled form of stress among that caused by terminal illness; death comes slowly – causing patients and family caregivers years of strain, suffering and embarrassment. It is the second-most feared disease in America, behind cancer, according to a recent Harvard School of Public Health survey.

“Our culture values everything that is young, fast and disposable,” Dewey said. “Dementia flies in the face of all of that. It affects the old, which we do not want to see. It slows you down, which is what we don’t have time for. You cannot go and get yourself a new brain when yours stops working.”

It is estimated that every 67 seconds, someone in the U.S. is diagnosed with dementia. This population is expected to spike dramatically as millions of baby boomers age.

To lessen dementia’s taboo as the nation grays, Dewey encourages patients to be direct with loved ones and colleagues, and engage in meaningful, fact-based conversation about their struggles.

“Silence breeds shame,” she said. “If others have a bad reaction to your diagnosis, it is really a reflection on them.”

Actor Will Ferrell backed out of a comedy earlier this year about Ronald Reagan’s struggle with Alzheimer’s disease, after outrage from the former president’s family.

According to The Hollywood Reporter, the comedy would have been set at the beginning of Reagan’s second term. According to the script, that is when he was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s and had no idea what he was doing for the remainder of his time in the Oval Office.

In one scene, a low-level aid tries to convince Reagan that he is only an actor playing the president in a movie. Reagan’s family called the project “cruel” and “heartless.”

“Alzheimer’s is the ultimate pirate, pillaging a person’s life and leaving an empty landscape behind,” his daughter Patti Davis wrote in an open letter to Ferrell. “Perhaps you would like to explain to them how this disease is suitable material for a comedy.”

Images courtesy WikiMedia Commons