Robert, all the time Bob, DeMarco handed away not too long ago – and we’ve all misplaced a real affected person chief, a tireless advocate, researcher, and supporter for Alzheimer’s caregivers, a gifted creator, and an inexhaustible speaker.
Bob by no means sought awards or recognition for his Alzheimer’s work, however his legions of followers made certain his dedication and far-reaching affect had been seen. He received a number of WEGO Well being Awards together with his Alzheimer’s Studying Room weblog, Fb web page, and electronic mail group. Purely by phrase of mouth and the facility of his exceptional content material, he introduced hope, mild and a trove of sensible recommendation to thousands and thousands.
I’m one of many luckiest of the thousands and thousands – Bob lived in my hometown of Delray Seaside, Florida. He moved to Delray Seaside in 2003, forsaking a powerhouse monetary companies profession to grow to be Alzheimer’s caregiver for his mom Dottie. I met him after Dottie had handed, however he was nonetheless fiercely devoted to the Alzheimer’s neighborhood, and I requested him to have a beer with me.
That first beer collectively lasted three hours. Bob’s relentless curiosity and vitality had been infectious – our lengthy talks ricocheted from search engine science to Delray politics to Alzheimer’s analysis and medical trials to his profession in New York. That first time and each time after, we’d speak about Dottie too; how he had discovered so some ways to know “Dottie’s World” as he referred to as it, and to make her life
with Alzheimer’s not simply protected however rewarding and glad and enjoyable.
Bob handed that knowledge, that irreplaceable love, and hard-won expertise, alongside to everybody going through Alzheimer’s and to these of us at Well being Union WEGO who had the prospect to know him personally.
I spoke to him only a day earlier than he handed, and his solely remorse was that he hadn’t achieved sufficient – that if he’d achieved extra to battle his most cancers, he might have achieved extra for us all. We talked about that, and I did one of the best I might to inform him that Bob’s World actually had made the world a greater place.
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Bob was a phenomenal Alzheimer’s patient leader and a collaborative member of (legacy) WEGO Well being. The winner of the 2016 WEGO Well being Awards Finest In Present: Weblog, Bob held webinars and reside occasions for affected person leaders to be taught from his affected person chief experience. You possibly can view certainly one of his previous webinars here.
