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Penguin to Publish Groundbreaking Book on Dementia

September 2, 2011 - Toronto - "Unless you are planning to die before age 65, you too are at risk for dementia, regardless of family history." This is the sobering observation of Dr. Tiffany Chow, a prominent Toronto clinician and researcher in dementia, who will publish The Memory Clinic with Penguin Canada in 2013. Penguin Canada Publishing Director Diane Turbide acquired the book, represented by literary agent Beverley Slopen, in a competitive bid.

Dr. Chow offers knowledge and hope for an illness where there is, as yet, no cure. "This book is a summary of what I've learned through my research or from my colleagues about prevention and management of dementia," says the empathetic doctor. "Even where there is a family history of Alzheimer's disease, people at risk can do things to prevent its onset or progression."

Through her grandmother Ah Quan, born in 1906 in Hawaii of Chinese ancestry, Chow has a genetic legacy of Alzheimer's disease. Comparing her life to her grandmother's, she probes what she and other women can do to mitigate the impact of genetics, through nutrition, exercise, and the concepts of cerebral reserve and brain plasticity. But it is in her front-line role managing the suffering caused by dementia and aiding caregivers where Chow's compassionate voice is most inspiring.

Says Publishing Director Diane Turbide: "Tiffany Chow has written an important book on a condition that is likely to affect many of us, either as one of the afflicted or as a caregiver. The Memory Clinic is instructive, reassuring, and a fascinating guide through the mysterious twists of the brain."

In the book, Chow combines her perspective as one of the world's leading researchers on dementia with a uniquely empathetic practitioner's approach. She brings insight to dementia in all its forms, including its subset Alzheimer's disease—what it is, how to delay or prevent it, how to manage it, and current research in trying to halt it.

The Memory Clinic addresses four goals: do both caregivers and the afflicted feel safe, healthy, happy and loved? Taking action, says Chow, if at least one answer is "no", requires honesty and a higher integration with others. To answer yes to all four questions demonstrates skill at balancing life and is itself part of the protective shield against dementia's effects.

Dr. Tiffany Chow is Senior Clinician-Scientist at the Baycrest Rotman Research Institute, staff Behavioural Neurologist at the Ross Memory Clinic, and holds a dual appointment as Assistant Professor of Neurology and Geriatric Psychiatry with the University of Toronto. She studied or trained variously at Stanford, Rush Medical College, UCLA, and was Clinical Core Director at the University of Southern California Alzheimer's Research Center with a research program for frontotemporal dementia. Her current research focuses on behavioural disturbances brought on by dementia as well as their apparent opposite, apathy, and how these symptoms relate to brain chemistry as seen with functional neuroimaging.