Sam Simon "Dementia Man" An Existential Journey
All Home Care Matters
Enriched Life Home Care Services
5.0 • 88 Ratings
🗓️ 3 June 2025
⏱️ 55 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
All Home Care Matters and our host, Lance A. Slatton are honored to welcome Sam "Dementia Man" Simon as guest to the show.
About Sam Simon:
Sam Simon grew up in El Paso, Texas. In 1970 graduated law school to work with Ralph Nader's first Public Interest Research Group, in Washington, DC, and spent about 35 years as a prominent lawyer in the public interest field. His became known for his work in breaking up ATT, which got him appearances on Face the Nation, Phil Donahue Show, Today, GMA –even Oprah Winfrey once.
He later became a senior fellow working for Intersections, the social justice ministry of the Collegiate Church of New York. He was trained in theatrical improv, which became the start of this theatrical career. His first play, The Actual Dance, Loves Ultimate Journey Through Breast Cancer, was about his role as carepartner (he says lovepartner) of his wife during her breast cancer. He toured that play for a nearly a decade, until diagnosed with Early Stage Alzheimer's and has since written a new play, Dementia Man, an Existential Journey about this experience – to date. He advocates in the work for a radical new understanding of accessibility and support for people with cognitive issues.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Welcome to All Home Care Matters, the show where we discuss all things home care with discussions on important age-related matters and topics. |
| 0:10.1 | Brought to you by Enriched Life Home Care Services, the number one rated home care provider in Michigan by Top Rated Local. |
| 0:23.9 | Hello and welcome back to All Home Care Matters. |
| 0:26.6 | If this is your first time visiting us here at the show, we want to say thank you for taking |
| 0:30.1 | time out to be with us today. |
| 0:31.8 | We appreciate how valuable everyone's time is, and that's why we try and make each |
| 0:35.7 | episode here at All home care matters, |
| 0:37.8 | something that will hopefully matter to you. Today, I am honored to welcome Sam Simon, also known |
| 0:43.8 | as Dementia Man, along with his wife, Susan Simon. Welcome. Thank you for having us. |
| 0:51.1 | Yes, yes, my pleasure. You know, Sam, I'm going to start it off with you. |
| 0:56.0 | You know, I introduced you as Sam Simon, but I said you're also known as dementia man. |
| 1:01.4 | What is dementia man? Well, I was diagnosed with Alzheimer's in 2022. |
| 1:17.1 | And I had previously been diagnosed with mild cognitive impairment. |
| 1:20.2 | And I was confronted with what to do. |
| 1:34.1 | I think that's true of anybody who gets a diagnosis of a terminal disease, if you want to, I was hesitating on that. |
| 1:49.0 | MCI wasn't terminal, but we didn't know why. Alzheimer's doesn't have a cure. So what do you do? There was a moment I folded into, you know, begin to fold into myself. And, you know, Susan here, my cognitive navigator, also my care partner, and I think this is important. |
| 2:01.2 | I'll be quick. |
| 2:03.2 | We've been through a similar journey. |
| 2:05.5 | She had been diagnosed in 2000 with advanced breast cancer. |
| 2:09.5 | And during that, her treatment, the doctors pulled me over and said, Sam, they found a post double mastectomy lump and |
| 2:19.6 | they went dark and he said, get ready. |
| 2:22.6 | And so I, we've been through it before and it's odd that we, I reflect about it and we |
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