I've recently been doing a bit of fishing around to see what Alzheimer's organisations have been established. Like most of the people whose weblogs I mentioned on 14 August ('the neural network'), I am an avowed non-joiner of organisations, but I still like to know what's out there. The first bodies I looked into were the national Alzheimer's Associations of America, Australia and New Zealand:

I mention these three specifically because they cover the countries of 'the neural network'. However, I was staggered to discover that there are many other national organisations. Seventy-five Alzheimer's Associations are listed in the webpages of Alzheimer's Disease International. I was particularly struck by carers' stories from Japan and South Africa, which show that the disease and people's reactions to it are pretty uniform across the globe.

The European Union has a very good, clear, website at Alzheimer Europe. The site has ten languages; the organisation has 31 member organisations.

During my cybertravels I also visited the American Alzheimer's Association's astonishingly active Caregiver's forum and left a post entitled Some Fine Alzheimer's Weblogs, which draws attention to the weblogs on 'the neural network' and Memory Lane (see below). the Caregiver's forum seems a more interactive, less literary alternative to weblogs, and may suit some carers better.

In addition to these official organisations, I found several other sites devoted to Alzheimer's, but they are sponsored by, for example, pharmaceutical companies and I am therefore somewhat sceptical of their motives. They can do their own marketing, and anyone with a browser can find them for themselves.

Finally, if you have not already done so, you might like to visit and contribute a link or two to Michael Murphy's new Memory Lane webring. This lists both Alzheimer's weblogs and organisations.