Maytee Aspuro’s mother was a Milwaukee high school teacher who, at age 59, began showing signs of Alzheimer’s disease. “She was starting to experience memory loss,” Aspuro recalled. “They were surprised she still was teaching. But she was a very intelligent woman, and she used her intelligence as a way of coping.” Eventually, the disease won out and at age 62 her mother, Acacia Aspuro, had to leave her teaching job at Washington High School. She died in 1993 at age 69. So when University of Wisconsin-Madison researchers asked Aspuro if she wanted to take part in a brain imaging study involving middle-aged people whose parents had Alzheimer’s, she did not hesitate.
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