Our Story

A letter from our founder, Elizabeth Humphreys-

In December of 2010, I was cooking with my mother to get ready for the holidays and recognized that she could no longer follow a familiar family recipe. There had been several occasions where she had repeated herself (and some other small personality changes), but up until that afternoon, I hadn't worried that something other than normal aging was happening. She was scared and confused, we both were; and frankly I was concerned she had suffered a mild stroke due to a facial tremor that seemed to coincide with the recent changes.

From that day forward, everything changed.  I found myself a mother of two small children, just 30 years old, swept into the role of being responsible for my mother's life.  It took three years to get a diagnosis of Alzheimer's disease.  In that time, there were multiple mis-diagnoses, which only made the process even more frustrating and her behaviors more confusing. I was on a course that no one else seemed to be on and I didn't have the first thing that felt like a road map with which to see it through.  I grew mentally and emotionally exhausted trying to meet the demands of my own family and my mom’s growing dependence on me.

I couldn't turn to my friends for understanding because no one else's parents had these same cognitive issues so young. It was isolating and there were days when I thought we were both losing our minds.  The first few years of doctors’ appointments with feeding grumpy babies in waiting rooms and an understandably scared mother took its toll on me. I was having trouble processing these abrupt changes in my mom with whom I’d always been so close. On top of that, I knew she felt guilty for being what she felt was a burden on me and that maybe broke my heart worst of all. I was determined to somehow stop this disease. There had to be a protocol out there that would work, a new drug or diet. I did anything but accept the realities we were facing.

A few years after my mom’s official diagnosis,, I finally reached out to the Alzheimer's Association. In that one critical move I found my way to finding healing in the midst of this journey.  A young staff member recruited me to chair the Young Professionals Board for the MidSouth Chapter in Nashville.  There, I raised over $12,000 in my first year.  It launched me into a community of other young caregivers like myself and I found the support that I had desperately needed all along. Recognizing that there are sandwich generation caregivers all over the world, I saw the need to start a nonprofit that focused solely on their needs. We can't yet save the victims of Alzheimer's, but we can save the caregivers who suffer alongside them who are often dealing with issues that become life threatening too. Mind What Matters has been and continues to be one of the greatest gifts of my life. When your heart breaks, love pours out of it. My heart has been and continues to be broken watching Alzheimer’s slowly strip my mother of everything, and Mind What Matters is what has poured out of it.

Mind What Matters serves the new generation of Alzheimer’s and other related dementias family caregivers. We aim to reduce caregiver burden and improve the quality of their lives. We also strive to promote awareness and education around brain health and how to prevent as many cases of Alzheimer’s and cognitive decline as possible.