Shattered Love, a Film about Pain and Devastation Caused by Alzheimer Disease
October 9, 2012
Hosted by Dr. Gordon Atherley
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Guest Information
Episode Description
Dawn Fields is an independent film producer and the president of Palm Street Films, a feature film production company based in Los Angeles. She talks about her career and as a film producer and shares her thoughts about family caregiving. She explains why she got involved in producing the film ‘Shattered Love’. She talks about the film’s story, the pain and devastation caused by Alzheimer’s disease. She says why it engaged her, and describes the reactions of her colleagues involved in the film. She describes the audience she’s thinking of for the film and its message for particular communities and people. She says who she would particularly like to see it, and why. She shares the message of the film for family caregivers and for people who are starting to be worried about developing Alzheimer’s disease. She explains why the film ‘Shattered Love’ matters, where people can watch it, and the help she needs in producing it.
Family Caregivers Unite!
Archives Available on VoiceAmerica Variety Channel
Family caregivers are the people who provide care to partners, parents, children, brothers, sisters, cousins, friends, neighbors and even co-workers. They are the people who provide care when everyone else has gone home. They are the people who organize the functioning of the home for the person with special needs, and for the family as a whole. They are the coordinators of care, the managers of appointments, the preventers of loneliness, and the makers of decisions even to the point of Power of Attorney. And they are so often people who themselves are burdened with their own health challenges and who may be in only marginally better health than the persons to whom they are providing family caregiving.
Dr. Gordon Atherley
Dr Gordon Atherley holds the British equivalent of the Canadian PhD and MD degrees, and LLD, Honoris Causa, from Canada’s Simon Fraser University. His awards include Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts, UK. His medical specialties are occupational medicine and public health.
As first President and Chief Executive Officer of the Canadian Centre for Occupational Health and Safety, the Canadian equivalent of the US National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health, he led the creation of Canada’s electronic information service in occupational health and safety, now used in more than 40 countries.
In academia, he held senior, tenured, full-time positions, including departmental chair, in university faculties of physics, engineering, and medicine. He is the author of a textbook and numerous articles and publications.
Since retiring from medical practice, he’s built up Greyhead Associates, which critically researches the safety, effectiveness and fairness of health services for persons with special needs.
Through Virtual Care International, a company of which he’s President, he’s involved in providing sensible technology to family caregivers to help them with their responsibilities, workloads, and concerns.
Now an activist, he urges family caregivers to unite because, more and more, it’s not just their families who depend on them, it’s also the healthcare system as a whole, as it struggles to meet more and more needs of more and more people.
