Sharan Newman is the author of The Real History of the End of the World: Apocalyptic Predictions From Revelation and Nostradamus to Y2K and 2012.

Marty Richards, a geriatric social worker in Port Townsend, Wash., who teaches at the University of Washington School of Social Work, has worked with patients, families and institutions to develop appropriate and meaningful forms of spiritual expression for people with dementia.

Clinical psychologist Cordula Dick-Muehlke works for the University of California’s Institute for Memory Impairments and Neurological Disorders and has more than 20 years’ experience in the field. She lectures widely on spirituality, elder care and dementia.

Pamala Kennedy is co-author with her husband, Richard, of Suffering in Slow Motion: Help for A Long Journey Through Dementia and Other Terminal Illnesses (Regal Books, 2003). Richard, pastor of a nondenominational church, was diagnosed with fronto-temporal dementia in 1997.

Deborah Shouse is the Kansas City area author of the 2006 book Love in the Land of Dementia: Finding Hope in the Caregiver’s Journey. Shouse’s mother had Alzheimer’s. Shouse and Ron Zoglin are The Creativity Connection‘s motivational consultants.

Rabbi Cary Kozberg, director of spiritual care at Wexner Heritage Village in Columbus, Ohio, has written about the unique, trusting relationship with God that an Alzheimer’s patient can develop. He speaks widely about Alzheimer’s.

Calvin College psychology professor Glenn Weaver, whose mother died of Alzheimer’s dementia, has studied the spirituality of Alzheimer’s patients.

Dorothy E. Roberts is the George A. Weiss University Professor of Law and Sociology and the Raymond Pace and Sadie Tanner Mossell Alexander Professor of Civil Rights at the University of Pennsylvania Law School.

Sandra Patton-Imani, an adoptee, is an associate professor of American studies in the Department for the Study of Culture and Society at Drake University in Des Moines, Iowa. She is the author of Birth Marks: Transracial Adoption in Contemporary America, in which black and multiracial adoptees discuss their experiences.