I never imagined that my weekly ritual of sorting pills by the bathroom sink would someday draw an audience. Much less a documentary filmmaker and crew with cameras, lights, and sound equipment perched on the counter for the best angle. It wasn’t what I expected in this lifetime, but then I could say the same about writing this book.

When I penned the brief personal essay that appeared in JAMA Neurology in the winter of 2019, it was to share, as a retired neurologist writing to other neurologists, my experiences as a patient with Alzheimer’s disease. I wanted to encourage them to seek more actively to detect and manage Alzheimer’s in its earliest stages, when a patient’s lifestyle choices have the greatest chance to alter the neurodegenerative course of the disease – a chance to extend the pre-symptomatic stage and slow the progression of cognitive impairment.