How do couples cope when one partner is diagnosed with Alzheimer’s?

San Francisco filmmaker Barbara Klutinis’ touching and informative short film The Sum Total of Our Memory: Facing Alzheimer’s Together explores how three couples affected by a partner’s recent diagnosis of Alzheimer’s come to terms with their changing roles.

Klutinis came to this subject when her husband was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s in 2010. Feeling alone and isolated, and the couple joined an Early Alzheimer’s support group in San Francisco. “I began to see that I was not the only one who was experiencing a sense of grief, despair, helplessness, and terror,” she says. “I also realized that, as a filmmaker, I was privy to a select group of people whose paths I would never have crossed had it not been for this disease. . . In the past, I had seen films about Alzheimer’s, but most of them were about aging parents. Few of them addressed married couples like Jerry and I, and what it was like in terms of our changing roles as a couple.”

Her 60-minute film (an expanded version of a short film that was a favorite of many at last year’s Albany FilmFest), also includes the input of medical professionals. Prominent Alzheimer’s medical experts from UCSF and California Pacific Medical Center offer their perspectives on diagnosis, the nature of the disease in the aging brain, helpful attitudes in caring for loved ones, stigma, support for caregivers, clinical trials, and overall healthcare concerns.

You are invited to stay after the film for an audience Q&A with the director.

A co-presentation of Albany FilmFest, the Albany Library, and Friends of the Albany Library.

The library is wheelchair accessible. An ASL interpreter will be provided for this program if requested at least 7 days in advance. Voice 510-745-1400 or TDD 888-663-0660.

For more information, contact info@albanyfilmfest.org

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While you're waiting, watch AFF's Best Short Documentary 2015, Zuxin Hou's My Dad's a Rocker.