Alzheimer

How does one care for their aging parent without losing sight of their own identity?

The first thing Roxana Ortega will say is: “We have to not abandon ourselves.”

The L.A.-born Latina actress outlines the deeply emotional process of caring for an aging parent in her first play, “Am I Roxie?,” which premieres Sept. 11 and kicks off the Geffen Playhouse’s 2025-26 season.

The production will remain through Oct. 5 at the Gil Cates Theater and is directed by Bernardo Cubría, (“Crabs in a Bucket” and “The Play You Want”).

Ortega’s one-woman show was inspired by her mother, Carmen, whose memory is in decline due to Alzheimer’s disease. Bounded by her commitment to being the perfect Latina daughter, Ortega illustrates how she stepped up to provide caregiving duties, while trying to sustain her acting career — even if it was just a Jimmy Dean breakfast sandwich commercial.

“This show to me is about how to not abandon ourselves in a time of such great darkness,” says Ortega through a video call.

Onstage, Ortega masterfully transforms her solo act into an ensemble performance, through her many quirky accents and mannerisms alone; her characters range from her three Peruvian tías to an imaginary cholo critic and a perky, silicone-bloated nurse.

Capturing a broad emotional spectrum, from joy to grief, it is clear that Ortega — a former troupe member of the Groundlings Sunday Company — showcases a lifetime of skills on the Westwood stage.

“Everything just merged as I was trying to write about what was happening,” says Ortega. “I was also leaving sketch comedy [group] the Groundlings, so I was finding my own voice. All those things merged to birth this, a perfect combination of so many desires and dreams I’ve had.”

With over 80 acting credits to her name, the multi-hyphenate artist is best known for voicing the melodramatic Frida Casagrande from Nickelodeon’s Emmy-winning show “The Casagrandes,” an animated sitcom about a family living in the fictional Great Lakes City. Other notable credits include Netflix’s “Grand-Daddy Day Care” and “Santa Clarita Diet,” Warner Bros.‘ “Miss Congeniality 2” as well as the popular Fox series “New Girl.”

Audiences should buckle up — preferably with tissues at the ready — for a roller coaster of emotions, as they witness Ortega relinquish control over an unchangeable fate, while holding compassion for her mother and herself in “Am I Roxie?”

This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.

Your one-woman show, “Am I Roxie?,” explores your personal journey as a caretaker for your aging parent, but it also focuses on your artistic aspirations. Can you walk me through your decision to make this the subject of your next project?

I’ve always wanted to turn my personal material into art; most artists do feel that way. I had been doing it for quite a while in sketch comedy, [by] taking characters like my tías, who I find to be so hysterical, and trying to put them into things. So I knew somewhere in the back of my brain — or in the middle — that I wanted to do a show about my family. I watched Ruben Santiago-Hudson’s “Lackawanna Blues,” so I always wanted to do that.

This play approaches heavy topics with humor. How did you strike that balance?

I think that’s just the way my brain works. I think a lot of comedians are this way; we’re always looking for laughs and maybe that’s how we survive ’cause we are very sensitive people — I’m very sensitive and very intense, so laughter is that levity.

Through the development process, we did have some discussions about certain moments. Do we want people to laugh when I’m in the chaise longue texting, “Is [my mom] still alive?” We had more “Shark Tank” sounds running through that and then changed it.

Caregiving is obviously a huge endeavor for Latinos — Latina women, more specifically. How do you make sense of the idea of care now?

I [think of] abandonment. There’s something so primal when somebody is aging and you can tell, “This person was in charge of me; they’re so vulnerable; now they need me. Oh my god, I can’t abandon them, right?” You feel like, “I don’t want to be abandoned, so I don’t want to abandon them.” It really shocked me how strong that urge was and I think we also have to not abandon ourselves. We absolutely cannot.

If you go into the caregiving world, they talk about care like: “Here’s your pills, here’s the food and we have some music coming in.” Maybe if you’re lucky, there’s bingo — but my mom wouldn’t play bingo! Are you f— kidding me? Care should be individualized. It should address the spirit.

Guilt creeps up in this play disguised as your inner Latina critic every time you do something that feels selfish in light of your mom’s situation. What relationship do you have with your inner critic now?

I definitely feel like I’ve gone through a journey from fear to love with the task of caregiving and even in relation to myself; I learned to love myself more, which is part of caring for yourself.

In this process of putting [my story] out there, of just being so gentle with myself and saying, “No matter what happens, no matter how it’s received, I’m not going to put my identity on the line.” There will be no beating myself up. There will be no, “Now you’re terrible because this, this, this …” It’s always a practice. Life is too short for us to feel bad.

There’s no benefit to suffering, and most of our suffering we do to ourselves through that critic by giving it power. And in our culture, sometimes it’s glorified.

You’re an overachiever, a Berkeley grad and former Groundlings member. But in “Am I Roxie?,” you balance the urgency of achieving your goals with the grief of losing a parent who is still alive. How did it feel to not give up on your dreams?

I felt like a terrible daughter. It’s hard. There’s a point in the show when I leave my mom and she says, “Don’t leave me here,” and I leave her and go to an audition. That’s a hard moment and I can tell that the audience is like, “How could you do that?” It feels vulnerable to show that I did that. But then, how does a mother leave their child at kindergarten? How can you find the balance where you are nurturing yourself and nurturing somebody else?

It was hard. I would beat myself up a lot and cry about feeling so terrible. And then go the next day to absolve myself. The more [my mom] found other relationships with a caregiver, the more I felt like, “Okay, she’s safe.”

Motherhood is also at the core of your story — not just with your mother, but as you explore your own fertility journey. How did your concept of motherhood change after caring for your mother?

What I didn’t explicitly say in the play is that I am a mother. I mothered my mother. Now, not everyone who is a mother by having a baby is necessarily a “mothering mother.” Something that this disease taught me is what these words really mean. What is it to be a sister? What is it to be a mother? What I learned in caring for my mom is that I am a mother, because I was able to nurture on such a deep level. Even when all the signs showed that she’s not there anymore. A mother knows her baby. She was my baby at the end.

After our fertility journey, 10 years of trying, me birthing this piece of art was me mothering my creativity into existence.

 You don’t mention Alzheimer’s by name until that very end. Why?

Part of it was accepting the journey and being able to say the diagnosis. Sometimes there’s an avoidance around Alzheimer’s. Nobody wants to say the word or talk about the disease ’cause it’s sad. So I wanted to make it a moment when I actually said it so that we can see the weight of it. Hopefully viewers will leave the theater being able to speak about it and to know it in an intimate way. Naming it is so important, so we can take the sting and discomfort off.

There are tender moments onstage where you let out tears. What is it like to relive those real-life moments on stage every night?

It is so difficult, more difficult than I thought it would be. My mom is onstage with me when I walk out there. I take her hand and I put her in that little opera chair next to me and we are together. Saying goodbye to her every night is hard.

Fiona Phillips has sensationally revealed that she had secretly split from her husband Martin Frizell as tension grew in their marriage before Alzheimer’s diagnosis

To the outside world, Fiona Phillips’ marriage was nothing short of perfect. But now, the former breakfast TV presenter has revealed that her relationship was anything but a happy one as Alzheimer’s disease was starting to take its toll on her and her family – unknowingly.

The relationship between Fiona, 64 and her husband – former This Morning producer Martin Frizell – had broken down beyond repair as she recalled the moment he announced he was moving out of their family home.

In a first person piece for the Mail On Sunday, the TV star, who was one of the main presenters of GMTV, opened up on the fact she was not aware she had developed the disease which had taken both her parents.

In the run up to their secret separation, Fiona explained that she was in denial over the fact she was experiencing the initial symptoms of the disease and put it down to the menopause instead.

Their marriage became more and more fractured as Martin felt Fiona was becoming increasingly distant from him and their children and their arguments were becoming far too regular.

Fiona explained: “Was I worried that there might be something sinister lurking beneath the surface? That Alzheimer’s could one day be coming for me too? “

She added: “On one level I did think I would get the disease, but there was also another part of me that was in a strange sort of denial about it all. This illness has devastated so much of my life already, surely it’s not going to come for me too?’ I’d tell friends.”

Fiona went onto reveal that she’s sure that the disease was “at least partly responsible” for her marriage breaking down but that neither she nor Martin could see that. She became “more and more disconnected” from her family, with Martin accusing her of zoning out of their marriage.

She said: “But, if I’m honest, I think he was right. I just didn’t seem to have the energy for any of it any more. I didn’t realise quite how seriously Martin felt about it all until one evening he announced he was moving out.”

In that moment, Fiona did not believe that her marriage was completely over, in fact she said that she felt he was simply “trying to shock me into behaving differently”.

They had separated for three weeks before they started to exchange text messages between each other and then arranged to meet at a hotel in Hampshire, in a desperate bid to save their marriage.

They reconciled their differences but Fiona recalled that she was still suffering with the same symptoms. In 2023, at the age of 62, Fiona revealed that she had been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s.

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Billy Joel has canceled all upcoming concerts, revealing he has been diagnosed with a brain disorder that causes physical and mental issues.

Joel, 76, has normal pressure hydrocephalus, or NPH, according to a statement posted Friday on the piano man’s social media. “This condition has been exacerbated by recent concert performances, leading to problems with hearing, vision and balance,” the statement said.

“Under his doctor’s instructions, Billy is undergoing specific physical therapy and has been advised to refrain from performing during this recovery period.”

Symptoms of NPH — in which cerebrospinal fluid accumulates in the ventricles of the brain but pressure doesn’t increase — include difficulty walking, according to the Alzheimer’s Assn. Sufferers walk with a wide stance and their bodies leaning forward, as if they were trying to maintain balance on a boat.

The association’s website says that another symptom is cognitive decline, including slowed thinking, loss of interest in daily activities, forgetfulness, short-term memory loss and difficulty completing ordinary tasks. Later in the disease, bladder control can become an issue.

NPH is one of the few causes of dementia or cognitive decline that can be controlled or reversed with treatment, the association’s website says. Surgical treatment usually involves placement of a shunt. The condition is often misdiagnosed as Alzheimer’s or Parkinson’s disease.

Danny Bonaduce of “The Partridge Family,” radio and wrestling fame was diagnosed with NPH in 2023. The 65-year-old said in a 2024 interview that he initially thought he’d had a stroke, while doctors thought it was early-onset dementia or Alzheimer’s. It took “the better part of a year” for him to get a correct diagnosis, he said.

Bonaduce’s memory loss appears to have been serious: He showed the interviewer a photo of himself in a wheelchair checking out the house where he and his wife now live. He said he has no memory of visiting the place multiple times before moving there.

Billy Joel’s message Friday follows his mid-March announcement that he would postpone his upcoming tour to manage his health after surgery for an unspecified condition. At the time, the singer expected a full recovery after physical therapy.

Now, the statement said, Joel is “thankful for the excellent care he is receiving and is fully committed to prioritizing his health” and “looks forward to the day when he can once again take the stage.”

“I’m sincerely sorry to disappoint our audience, and thank you for understanding,” Joel said in Friday’s statement.

In late February, the “Just the Way You Are” singer fell after performing “It’s Still Rock and Roll to Me” in Connecticut. He quickly recovered; it’s unclear whether that incident was a symptom of the disease or simply coincidental.

Times staff writer Alexandra Del Rosario contributed to this report.

Dr. Charles DeCarli, co-director of the UC Davis Alzheimer’s Research Center, got the news in a call from a colleague on March 24.

“Your study was terminated.”

DeCarli had been conducting a six-year examination, funded by the National Institutes of Health, of brain and vascular conditions that can be risk factors for dementia. The study, involving hundreds of medical staff, 14 research sites, and 1,700 patients at 19 clinical locations in the U.S., was building toward a goal of 2,250 patients.

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“This was the culmination of my career, the pinnacle of my research” over the last 38 years, DeCarli said.

The $53-million study, paid in annual allotments, was approved during President Trump’s first term. But in Term Two, the administration has taken a chain saw to universities, federal jobs and federal funding for scientific research, which has prompted talk of a brain drain, with scientists looking for work in other countries.

The termination letter from NIH informed DeCarli that his study, with its “artificial and non-scientific categories,” was on the chopping block because it “no longer effectuates agency priorities.” The UC Davis study was one of 14 such research projects notified in March that funding was being terminated.

About 7 million U.S. residents aged 65 and older have Alzheimer’s, the nation’s seventh-leading cause of death. Given the cresting age wave, the number is expected to roughly double in the next 35 years. So it doesn’t make sense that a deeper understanding of a complex set of unremittingly cruel brain diseases that decimate the lives of victims, and their loved ones, is no longer a priority.

Mannie Rezende, who was suffering from Alzheimer’s, walks with his wife Rose Shalom in June 2023. About 7 million U.S. residents age 65 and older have Alzheimer’s, the nation’s seventh-leading cause of death.

(Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times)

DeCarli suspects he was targeted because of the name of his study:

“The Clinical Significance of Incidental White Matter Lesions on MRI Amongst a Diverse Population with Cognitive Complaints.”

DEI — diversity, equity and inclusion — programs are on the administration’s hit list. But in this case, “diverse” was a reference to a spectrum of health and age, and educational and racial backgrounds of patients.

With the help of UC Davis lawyers, DeCarli appealed the decision, but he also had to begin shutting down the study in anticipation of a second rejection or a long appeal process.

The appeal was successful, and funding was restored on April 11, but DeCarli is still playing catch-up.

“There were big-time disruptions,” he told me.

Clinical partners, who each had to contact as many as 100 patients with news of the termination, had to reach out again to tell them the green light was back on.

But for how long?

Nobody seems to know, said Russ Paulsen of UsAgainstAlzheimer’s, a nonprofit advocacy group. When I spoke to him on Wednesday, Paulsen had just watched a Senate hearing in which Appropriations Committee Chair Susan Collins (R-Maine), demanded that NIH cuts be restored.

Mannie Rezende and wife Rose Shalom with their dogs Clara, foreground, and Teddy in 2023.

(Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times)

“I think there is broadly bipartisan support” for continued research into Alzheimer’s, Paulsen said. And the official word at Health and Human Services is that the administration remains committed to “robust biomedical research” and “maintaining our global leadership in science and technology.”

But that claim doesn’t square with the dismissal earlier this year of 1,000 NIH employees, or with news accounts of a plan to slash 30% of the Health and Human Services budget and 40% of the NIH budget.

“It’s hard to imagine somebody opposed to finding cures, and yet we have no explanation for why they’re proposing a 40% cut,” Paulsen said.

“We know that funds are flowing out the door far slower than they have in many years, and we know that researchers are submitting high-quality research and getting ‘answer pending’ or getting rejected,” he added. “And we know that existing multi-year grants are being canceled or payment is being delayed.”

In March, Rose Shalom of Sunland lost her husband, Mannie Rezende, who had slowly deteriorated from Alzheimer’s over several years. Shalom called the disruption of research egregious and immoral, and she said those who control the purse strings on research should “spend some time with someone with Alzheimer’s and their caregivers to understand the unique horror of this disease.”

I visited Rose and Mannie in 2023 at their home and at OPICA, the West L.A. adult day-care center where Mannie spent his days with a few dozen others on the same path.

“As we are living longer, more and more people will be diagnosed with this disease,” Shalom said. “The emotional and financial toll on the patients and their caregivers is beyond description.”

There is, unfortunately, no cure on the immediate horizon. But DeCarli said there have been some encouraging advances, including medication that can help slow the progression of cognitive decline, and improved diagnostics that can lead to earlier intervention.

The U.S. is both a world leader and a collaborator in medical research, DeCarli said. The process is integrated, “with people working on different parts … of the same question, and true discovery sometimes comes from interacting” with each other.

The Trump administration seems to have a different agenda.

It includes:

· Dismantling the U.S. role in solving medical mysteries.

· Dismissing hundreds of researchers studying the impact of global warming.

· Driving scientists to look for work in other countries.

Who knew there’d be so many backwater swamps, potholes and detours on the road to making America great again.

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