Part one is a mix of authoritative interviews, the most gripping of course is a close encounter with Alzheimer's ( a Mother and daughter), but really there was only the one subject. There were some odd production choices, embedding a relevent piece with no segues where breaks for news and id's would be. The second part on diagnosing early Alzheimer's feels a little alarmist and unscientific - using one example of early diagnosis which could quite feasibly turn out to be wrong ! As we are told, even full-blown Alzheimer's cannot ever be 100% diagnosed without autopsy. So the focus was a puzzling choice. A fair portion of the content was an interview with David Shenk author of The Forgetting - his research is extensive and he is considered now an authority. But I sometimes felt some of his pronouncements a little irresponsible.
We are all living longer, there are many more cases of varying types of senility, early and otherwise. People are so very much more vulnerable to and desperate for any kind of information about Alzheimer's, and I left this piece feeling it somewhat alarmist.
In spite of this, there were many engaging moments. A particularly moving theme was about the caretakers, the syndromes of their stress and the wear of heartbreak.
vm