Welcome to the official website of Greg O’Brien, author, journalist and advocate for Alzheimer’s and Dementia awareness. Greg O’Brien’s book, On Pluto: Inside the Mind of Alzheimer’s, is an international award winner and the first book written by an investigative reporter embedded inside the mind of Alzheimer’s. On Pluto chronicles the progression of Greg’s own disease and his journey, bringing a unique perspective and hopeful vision to those who suffer from Alzheimer’s as well as their caretakers.

O’Brien was diagnosed several years ago with Alzheimer’s after a series of brain scans and clinical tests, and serious head traumas that doctors say unmasked a disease in the making. Alzheimer’s—a disease that can take 20-to-25 years to run its serpentine course— Alzheimer’s took O’Brien’s maternal grandfather, his mother, and his paternal uncle, and before his father past away, he, too, was diagnosed with dementia. O’Brien, who carries the Alzheimer’s marker gene APOE-4, is the subject of the short film, “A Place Called Pluto,” directed by award-winning filmmaker Steve James. NPR’s “All Things Considered” has run a series of pieces about O’Brien’s journey, available online, and PBS/NOVA took a trip to Pluto in its groundbreaking Alzheimer’s documentary, Can Alzheimer’s Be Stopped.

More recently, Hollywood filmmakers produced a documentary about the O’Brien family journey that includes interviews with top Alzheimer’s experts, O’Brien’s pastor, and his wife Mary Catherine, daughter Colleen, and sons Brendan and Conor. To view “Have You Heard About Greg” an hour and a half film that played in select theaters from Los Angeles to Manhattan, visit: https://www.hyhag.com.

On Pluto : Inside the Mind of Alzheimer’s has won the Beverly Hills International Book Award for Medicine, the International Book Award for Health, was an Eric Hoffer International Book Award finalist, as well as a finalist for USA Best Book Awards. It has been translated into Mandarin for distribution in China, into Italian for distribution in Italy, and a foreign edition is distributed in India.

O’Brien, who has spoken nationally and internationally on Alzheimer’s and other forms of dementia, serves on the Board of Directors of the distinguish UsAgainstAlzheimer’s in Washington, DC, is an advocate for the Cure Alzheimer’s Fund of Boston, and has served on the national Alzheimer’s Association Advisory Group for Early Onset Alzheimer’s.

He lives in Brewster on Outer Cape Cod where he and his wife, Mary Catherine, raised their three children.