Kitty Norton is an American who describes herself as a former “just about everything – from non-profits arts administrator to cabaret performer to post-production professional to crappiest daughter of the year award-winner for more than forty years”.
She forfeited that last accolade when, six years after her mum was diagnosed with vascular dementia, and following the sudden death of her dad, she gave up her job with NBC in Los Angeles to move back to Oregon so that she and her sister could provide their mum with the best possible dementia care. Hardly the actions of a crappy daughter!

To get her through this unplanned turn in her career, Kitty started a blog called, brilliantly, Stumped Town Dementia. The blog brought her a temporary escape from dementia as well as countless virtual caregiver friends from all over the world who supported her with their understanding comments, emails and Zoom dates. “They helped me, which in turn helped mum. My gratitude to them knows no bounds”, she says.

When her mum died in 2021, Kitty decided she wanted to meet the virtual friends who had become so very important to her as she cared for her mum and, in her words, “Sit out on a summer’s night, open a couple of bottles of wine, and find healing in the camaraderie of a fellow dementia caregiver”.

Being Kitty, she then went and did just that. And then she thought, “Well, hell, if I’m going all the way round the country to talk smack with seasoned dementia family caregivers, why not hire a film crew and make a documentary? It might help others on the same rough road”.

The result is an incredible 90 minute film charting the 75 hundred miles and 27 states that Kitty covered in 26 days. Wine, Women and Dementia has already been garlanded with awards. It’s produced by some serious professionals and features caregivers Kitty encountered through her blog, including former Well I Know Now guest and host of Daughterhood, the Podcast, the wonderful Rosanne Corcoran.

Like Stumped Town Dementia, Wine, Women and Dementia holds no punches. Its protagonists, the caregivers, are strong, articulate women with fire (and possibly the odd drop of rose or Californian white) in their belly. It’s a rollicking, funny, sad, informative, supportive must-watch for all family caregivers – and policy makers. For everyone remotely interested in dementia, in what it is to be a human under intolerable pressure for a very long time. Actually, perhaps it’s just for everyone.

You can find all the up to date information on when Kitty’s film will be available here in the UK – and elsewhere throughout the world – and some wonderful clips, at the website https://www.winewomenanddementia.com/.  You can find her blog at https://www.stumpedtowndementia.com/