So McCreesh, of Wayne, Pa., spent that Friday afternoon at, of all places, the Philadelphia Home Show. She figured she can't change her father's diagnosis, but she can make it easier for him to stay at home, in the house McCreesh grew up in.
"We can see the house through his eyes and find ways to make it easier for him, not knowing what's ahead."
She was there for a presentation by Theresa Clement, an Ambler designer and aging-in-place specialist whose own father succumbed to Alzheimer's disease in September. Clement learned along the way that her line of work was surprisingly relevant to managing certain symptoms of the disease.
"If I had known at the start what I know now, my dad would have been able to live at home with my mom a year or so longer than he did," Clement said. So, consulting with experts including Dylan Wint, a neurologist and psychiatrist at the Cleveland Clinic, she's developed what she calls Design Prescription.