TY - BOOK AU - Saunders,Gerda TI - Memory's last breath: field notes on my dementia SN - 9780316502627 PY - 2017/// CY - New York PB - Hachette Books KW - Saunders, Gerda KW - Dementia KW - Patients KW - Biography KW - Alzheimer's disease KW - Autobiographies KW - lcgft KW - Biographies N1 - Telling who I am before I forget -- Quantum puff adders and fractional memories -- The grammar of the disappearing self -- This is your brain on the fritz -- Of madness and love I -- Of madness and love II -- Makeovers in extremis -- The exit that dare not say its name N2 - Based on the "field notes" she keeps in her journal, Memory's Last Breath is Saunders' astonishing window into a life distorted by dementia. She writes about shopping trips cut short by unintentional shoplifting, car journeys derailed when she loses her bearings, and the embarrassment of forgetting what she has just said to a room of colleagues. Coping with the complications of losing short-term memory, Saunders nonetheless embarks on a personal investigation of the brain and its mysteries, examining science and literature, and immersing herself in vivid memories of her childhood in South Africa ER -