A family shares the hard lessons of a dementia diagnosis

These past several years have been unspeakably sad ones for Donna Kuzmarov as, gradually but inexorably, she lost her beloved husband to dementia.

Irwin Kuzmarov was 81 when he died in May at the Maimonides Geriatric Centre in Côte-St-Luc, where he been since late 2023. But she had started to lose him long before. Dementia, Donna said, requires “learning to live alone although our loved one is still alive.”

What she describes is known as ambiguous loss — a theory developed by family therapist Pauline Boss in the 1970s. “Someone with dementia is both here and gone,” Boss told The Gazette, referring to a physical presence remaining when a psychological presence has been lost.

Caregivers to people with dementia are often unprepared for the difficulties they face in accessing care, support