Struggling with Alzheimer’s disease

17 photos

Ted and Jan Buckley live across the hall from Roger and Eleanor Barnard at Longview, a residential senior retirement community in Ithaca, N.Y. Ted is 83 and Roger is 86. Both are suffering from different stages of dementia.

Alzheimer’s was something I had thought about as my grandfather began to mix up my name, or forget entire moments. I began to wonder what it would be like if it got worse. Soon after, I found Ted & Jan Buckley, the first couple that allowed me to photograph their lives together. Ted was at the beginning stages of Alzheimer’s and would tell me the same stories each time I photographed him, mainly of how he met his wife, Jan. Their neighbors Roger & Eleanor Barnard were a similar couple, but Roger was at the end stages of Alzheimer’s.

This photo essay, which I made for a Documentary Photography class at Ithaca College, encompasses both couples’ lifestyle going through Dementia and Alzheimer’s. Roger passed away in his apartment May 2013. Ted & Jan still live together in their apartment