Seized by Alzheimer’s, Then Love

Institutionalized patients, including those with Alzheimer’s, sometimes find new romance. (Marko Georgiev/The New York Times) Sometimes Alzheimer’s disease means losing a loved one twice. As the disease ravages the brain and erases memory, patients who have been married for years, even most of their lives, may stop recognizing their spouses. And sometimes, in a phenomenon rarely discussed, husbands and wives find they must watch helplessly as patients fall in love with someone entirely new.