Author studies dementia among indigenous people


A DIFFERENT TAKE ON AGING—Jonathan Yahalom, an Oak Park High School alumnus, recently published his book “Caring for the People of the Clouds: Aging and Dementia in Oaxaca.” Villagers claim they rarely suffer from Alzheimer’s disease because they don’t worry or face the same stresses as urban people.

A DIFFERENT TAKE ON AGING—Jonathan Yahalom, an Oak Park High School alumnus, recently published his book “Caring for the People of the Clouds: Aging and Dementia in Oaxaca.” Villagers claim they rarely suffer from Alzheimer’s disease because they don’t worry or face the same stresses as urban people.

Jonathan Yahalom, a 2003 graduate of Oak Park High School, has published a book that studies issues of caregiving in a rural Mexican community —and sheds new light on how the people in the region cope with age and memory loss.

Published by University of Oklahoma Press, the book is titled “Caring for the People of the Clouds: Aging and Dementia in Oaxaca.”

The 34-year-old Yahalom works as a psychologist at the Department of Veterans Affairs in Los Angeles. He holds a doctorate in clinical psychology from Duquesne University in Pittsburgh.

In a small town in the Mexican state of Oaxaca, many locals believe Alzheimer’s disease does not exist in their community because it comes out of a different environment.

“People do not have Alzheimer’s because they don’t need to worry,” one Oaxacan says, explaining that locals lack the stresses that people face in the modern world.

In fact, dementia and Alzheimer’s are stigmatized because, in contrast to the way elders are revered for remembering local traditions, dementia symbolizes how modern families have forgotten the communal values that bring them together.

Jonathan Yahalom

Jonathan Yahalom

For the people whom Yahalom studied, cognitive decline leading to death “is not necessarily a given.”

In his book, Yahalom offers an analysis of the care given to Oaxacan elders affected by memory loss, and he provides insight about how aging, dementia and caregiving are ultimately handled by the local families.

“I reasoned that conducting a study in another cultural setting would require me to continually question basic ideas about death, dying and illness, and help provide contrastive light on these taken-for-granted concepts from my own background,” Yahalom said.

“So I turned to Oaxaca, Mexico’s southern state with 16 vibrant indigenous groups. At least from the outside, it seemed an ideal place to carry out such an investigation.

“There exist other ways to experience and respond to dementia— ways that might highlight alternatives to how cognition is so prioritized that instead center on creative expression, being in the presence of others, human touch and the myriad other dimensions to everyday experience. Celebrating these capacities could function to bring people closer together.”

Yahalom is the son of Ruth and Glen Rose of Oak Park and Rami Yahalom.

He credits high school mentors for giving him a strong educational background.

“At Oak Park High School I was fortunate for more teachers than I can count. I learned from coach Kevin Smith how to be persistent, from teacher Winnie Litten how biological sciences are fascinating and from teacher Kathy Schultheis the importance of the written word,” Yahalom said.

Acorn staff report