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I'd like to talk about my dad.

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My dad has Alzheimer's disease.

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He started showing the symptoms about 12 years ago,

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and he was officially diagnosed in 2005.

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Now he's really pretty sick. He needs help eating,

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he needs help getting dressed, he doesn't really know where he is

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or when it is, and it's been really, really hard.

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My dad was my hero and my mentor for most of my life,

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and I've spent the last decade watching him disappear.

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My dad's not alone. There's about 35 million people globally living with some kind of dementia,

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and by 2030 they're expecting that to double to 70 million.

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That's a lot of people.

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Dementia scares us. The confused faces and shaky hands of people who have dementia,

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the big numbers of people who get it, they frighten us.

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And because of that fear, we tend to do one of two things:

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We go into denial: "It's not me, it has nothing to do with me, it's never going to happen to me."

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Or, we decide that we're going to prevent dementia,

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and it will never happen to us because we're going to do everything right and it won't come and get us.

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I'm looking for a third way: I'm preparing to get Alzheimer's disease.

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Prevention is good, and I'm doing the things that you can do to prevent Alzheimer's.

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I'm eating right, I'm exercising every day, I'm keeping my mind active,

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that's what the research says you should do.

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But the research also shows that there's nothing that will 100 percent protect you.

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If the monster wants you, the monster's gonna get you.

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That's what happened with my dad.

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My dad was a bilingual college professor. His hobbies were chess, bridge and writing op-eds.

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(Laughter)

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He got dementia anyway.

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If the monster wants you, the monster's gonna get you.

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Especially if you're me, 'cause Alzheimer's tends to run in families.

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So I'm preparing to get Alzheimer's disease.

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Based on what I've learned from taking care of my father,

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and researching what it's like to live with dementia, I'm focusing on three things in my preparation:

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I'm changing what I do for fun, I'm working to build my physical strength,

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and -- this is the hard one -- I'm trying to become a better person.

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Let's start with the hobbies. When you get dementia, it gets harder and harder to enjoy yourself.

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You can't sit and have long talks with your old friends, because you don't know who they are.

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It's confusing to watch television, and often very frightening.

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And reading is just about impossible.

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When you care for someone with dementia, and you get training,

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they train you to engage them in activities that are familiar, hands-on, open-ended.

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With my dad, that turned out to be letting him fill out forms.

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He was a college professor at a state school; he knows what paperwork looks like.

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He'll sign his name on every line, he'll check all the boxes,

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he'll put numbers in where he thinks there should be numbers.

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But it got me thinking, what would my caregivers do with me?

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I'm my father's daughter. I read, I write, I think about global health a lot.

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Would they give me academic journals so I could scribble in the margins?

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Would they give me charts and graphs that I could color?

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So I've been trying to learn to do things that are hands-on.

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I've always liked to draw, so I'm doing it more even though I'm really very bad at it.

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I am learning some basic origami. I can make a really great box.

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(Laughter)

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And I'm teaching myself to knit, which so far I can knit a blob.

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But, you know, it doesn't matter if I'm actually good at it. What matters is that my hands know how to do it.

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Because the more things that are familiar, the more things my hands know how to do,

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the more things that I can be happy and busy doing when my brain's not running the show anymore.

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They say that people who are engaged in activities are happier,

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easier for their caregivers to look after, and it may even slow the progress of the disease.

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That all seems like win to me.

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I want to be as happy as I can for as long as I can.

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A lot of people don't know that Alzheimer's actually has physical symptoms,

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as well as cognitive symptoms. You lose your sense of balance,

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you get muscle tremors, and that tends to lead people to being less and less mobile.

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They get scared to walk around. They get scared to move.

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So I'm doing activities that will build my sense of balance.

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I'm doing yoga and tai chi to improve my balance, so that when I start to lose it,

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I'll still be able to be mobile.

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I'm doing weight-bearing exercise, so that I have the muscle strength

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so that when I start to wither, I have more time that I can still move around.

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Finally, the third thing. I'm trying to become a better person.

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My dad was kind and loving before he had Alzheimer's, and he's kind and loving now.

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I've seen him lose his intellect, his sense of humor, his language skills,

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but I've also seen this: He loves me, he loves my sons,

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he loves my brother and my mom and his caregivers.

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And that love makes us want to be around him, even now.

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even when it's so hard.

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When you take away everything that he ever learned in this world,

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his naked heart still shines.

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I was never as kind as my dad, and I was never as loving.

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And what I need now is to learn to be like that.

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I need a heart so pure that if it's stripped bare by dementia, it will survive.

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I don't want to get Alzheimer's disease.

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What I want is a cure in the next 20 years, soon enough to protect me.

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But if it comes for me, I'm going to be ready.

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Thank you.

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(Applause)