LUCIDITY
Preserving Clarity, Dignity, and Agency in the Face of Aging
Lucidity Library
Dementia Prevention Beyond the Brain: Understanding the Lancet Report
Dementia prevention extends beyond brain health to the medical, behavioral, social, and emotional conditions that shape our lives. The 2024 Lancet Commission identifies 14 modifiable risk factors, suggesting that prevention requires not only treatment and healthy habits but also connection, purpose, and meaningful engagement. Storytelling and reflection may support cognitive resilience by helping preserve identity, strengthen connection, and keep us actively engaged with ourselves and the world around us.
Rethinking Retirement: What Are We Retiring For Beyond Financial Security?
Retirement planning often focuses on whether we can afford to stop working while overlooking the deeper question of what we are retiring for. Freedom from work and more time for travel, hobbies, or leisure do not necessarily provide the purpose that once gave our days direction. Approaching retirement as an opportunity for renewal, growth, relationships, creativity, and contribution can help sustain both a meaningful life and an engaged mind.
Who Cares for the Solo Ager? Rethinking Community Care in an Individualized Society
Growing older without spouses or children reveals the limits of today’s “community care,” which has shifted from mutual responsibility to institutional service. Economic individualism and policies like the Social Security Act stabilized material needs but erode the social fabric, leaving care detached from genuine belonging. Rebuilding community through shared stories, renewed values, and small acts of participation can transform isolation into connection.
By 2038, the majority of Americans over age 80 are expected to be solo agers. Solo aging is growing older without a spouse, children, or close family support network. It can lead to greater risks of isolation, decision-making vulnerability, and uncertainty about who will advocate for them when health declines.
Listen to Lucidity Founder Dr. Todd Mei discuss the growing realities of solo aging, the limits of managed care, and why meaningful belonging may become one of the most important challenges in the future of aging and person-centered care.
Solo Aging in America: Planning Without Family Support
Our Team
Shaping the Future of Aging with Care and Clarity
Todd Mei
PhD
CEO & Founder
A former philosophy professor with 20+ years in hermeneutics, now pioneering digital storytelling that preserves voice and dignity through reflective interviewing at the edge of aging and meaning. His academic research focuses on hermeneutics, ethics, philosophy of technology, and meaningful work, with publications with Oxford University Press and Northwestern University Press.
Patricia Baker
PhD
Cultural Advisor
A former professor of Ancient History with 20+ years of expertise in medicine and culture, now bringing deep historical and anthropological insight to how humans understand the body, care, and the meaning of life and death. She has published widely on cultural thoughts about the body and its care from both physical and mental perspectives.
Andrea Bradfield
MBA, CCM, OTR
Palliative Care Advisor
Healthcare administrator with 15+ years of leadership in home health and hospice, overseeing strategy, compliance, operations, and profitability. Andrea has developed disease management and adaptive living programs and maintained profitability despite regulatory and reimbursement challenges. A licensed occupational therapist, her clinical background spans acute, rehab, and community-based care with a focus on functional recovery and quality of life.
Josh Fairchilds
Financial Advisor
Co-creator of Oboz Footwear, a brand that achieved a 93x return in just 10 years through the creation of iconic, industry-dominating products with lasting consumer appeal. As CFO and COO of a dynamic organization with diverse revenue streams and complex legal exposure, he has managed contracts exceeding $5 million and budgets over $10 million.
Anna Muñoz Farré
BEng, MSc
AI & Dementia Care Advisor
A biomedical engineer and the co-founder and CEO of Punto Health, where she is leveraging AI and clinical data to transform dementia care through personalized digital support. A strong advocate for gender equity in STEM, she was named Upcoming Woman in STEM by the Catalan Government in 2022.
Joseph Smart
Digital Health Advisor
A director in one of the largest organizations in the world. He has a strong track record of embedding technological innovations that save money and serve patient populations. Joseph is a consistent champion of innovation and adaptation in the service of patients and has commissioned contracts exceeding £50 million, managed budgets over £10 million, and led teams of more than 100 people.
Hear from Those We’ve Guided
Our video examples highlight how Lucidity’s guided storytelling experiences help individuals preserve their life stories, values, and personal legacy before memory loss or illness makes it harder to share. Each narrative interview shows how reflection can provide families with peace of mind, support caregivers in making decisions, and create a lasting record of dignity and identity.
FAMILY SESSION
Kathy, her daughter Mary, and her niece Debbie reflect on caring for Joe and Jimmy—Kathy’s husband and brother—both of whom lived with dementia.
Through their conversation, they share how love, patience, and loss have shaped their understanding of family and resilience.
INDIVIDUAL REFLECTION
Dr. Anne Alwis shares a deeply personal story about learning from her parents and caring for her mother, who lived with vascular dementia.
Blending her background as a scholar of ancient worlds with her lived experience of care, Anne explores what it means to carry values across generations — and why preparing for the future begins with understanding what matters most.
INDIVIDUAL REFLECTION
Kenji Haroutunian reflects on his experience caring for his mother, who is in the early stages of dementia, and for his wife, who awaits an organ transplant.
Drawing on a lifetime spent in the outdoors as a climber, guide, and advocate for access to nature, Kenji explores how resilience, teamwork, and adaptability shape his approach to caregiving — and how preparing for what lies ahead begins with learning to navigate life’s changing terrain.
ABOUT LUCIDITY
As we grow older, many of us face the fear of losing our memory, our clarity, or our ability to speak for ourselves. Families often struggle with difficult decisions about care, values, and quality of life — and too often, a person’s true wishes are left unheard or uncertain. Even when wishes are clear, families may feel unprepared for the practical and emotional realities of caregiving.
Lucidity exists to change that. Unlike standard advance care planning, Lucidity offers a narrative-based approach that focuses on "the why" behind care choices and not just the what. Through guided interviews, individuals share their values, identity, and reflections in their own words in order to create clarity for individuals and their families. Our method, called Narrative Dignity™, draws on hermeneutics and storytelling to help you express what matters most — not just facts, but meaning, priorities, and the sense of self you want your loved ones and caregivers to remember. In addition to individual sessions, Lucidity offers structured family services designed to clarify caregiving strengths, expectations, and limits before crisis forces difficult conversations.
These recordings and family reflections become trusted reference points for families, caregivers, and professionals when facing complex decisions. They provide peace of mind, reduce conflict, strengthen transparency, and ensure that care reflects both the individual’s voice and the family’s realistic capacity.
By combining compassionate guidance with accessible technology, Lucidity helps preserve dignity, strengthen family bonds, and offer clarity when it is needed most.
The Silent Wave of Dementia
By 2050, more than 150 million people worldwide are expected to live with dementia. In the U.S. alone, nearly 1 in 3 adults over 65 already experiences some form of cognitive decline. This is not just about memory loss — it’s about identity, dignity, and the ability to make decisions about one’s own life.
The impact extends far beyond the individual. Families often face painful choices about care and quality of life without clear guidance. Studies show that over 70% of adults fear becoming a burden to their loved ones, and yet less than 30% have completed an advance directive to communicate their wishes. This gap leaves families uncertain, overwhelmed, and struggling to honor what matters most.
At the same time, the global market for geriatric care services exceeds $1 trillion, reflecting the growing demand for support as societies age. Yet most solutions remain focused on medical treatment or logistics, not on preserving the person’s voice, values, and story.
This is the heart of the problem: how do we ensure that dignity, autonomy, and peace of mind are not lost to dementia?
Lucidity Academy
Lucidity Academy is our training hub for the Narrative Dignity™ method — a structured approach to guiding conversations that preserve meaning, identity, and values. Based on over 20 years of research, our method draws on hermeneutics, speech act theory, the capabilities approach, and virtue ethics.
Through courses, resources, and workshops, we equip professionals, caregivers, and facilitators with the skills to help individuals tell their stories in ways that foster clarity, dignity, and peace of mind.
Here, learning goes beyond technique. It’s about cultivating the art of listening, interpreting, and honoring the voices that matter most.
"Our mission is to help individuals articulate guiding principles of clarity, dignity, and agency through storytelling and reflection, creating benchmarks that shape end-of-life decisions and spare loved ones from uncertainty."
Todd Mei
CEO & Founder
Narrative Dignity™ Method
From Story to Meaning, From Meaning to Dignity
A guided process that helps individuals reflect on and share their life stories in a way that preserves identity, values, and voice. Drawing from philosophy, storytelling, and language theory, it goes beyond simple memories to uncover deeper meaning — what matters most, how experiences shape us, and how we want to be remembered.
By capturing these insights, Narrative Dignity provides families and caregivers with a clear, lasting guide for honoring dignity and making decisions with confidence and compassion.
Menu
Guided Experiences
“This was an excellent moment of reflection for me. The process helps understand what question one needs or wants to ask to themselves about mortality and care. A truly meaningful and insightful experience that will shape my self-reflection for the years to come.”
— A. Sforza Tarabochia
At Lucidity, we offer tiered guided experiences and family services designed to meet people where they are.
Each experience is built around our Narrative Dignity™ method, a unique approach that goes beyond capturing memories to uncover the meaning, values, and identity behind them.
From a one-time session that preserves the essence of your story, to more in-depth journeys that provide a lasting record for families and caregivers, our tiers offer flexibility while ensuring every voice is honored. For families seeking greater clarity around caregiving roles and shared responsibilities, the Caregiving Compass provides a structured process to strengthen alignment and transparency before crisis arises. What makes Lucidity distinctive is the combination of compassionate guidance, structured reflection, and professional storytelling. We create resources that bring peace of mind and clarity when they are needed most.
Foundations
$400
A recorded narrative interview designed to surface your core values, priorities, and concerns.
Through guided reflection, we uncover what shapes your decisions and begin considering how those convictions inform aging well and future care. You receive the full recording and an AI-assisted Values & Concerns Report.
Ideal as a first step or standalone reflection.
Formation
$1100
Foundations + 1 deep dive session. A two-session reflective process that deepens and applies what emerged in Foundations.
After time for reflection, we return to the conversation to explore aging benchmarks, advance care considerations, family dynamics, and legacy intentions. Includes an integrated report and complimentary follow-up call.
For those ready to move from insight to action.
Flourishing
$2500
Formation + 3 sessions. A five-session extended process for living deliberately in light of what matters most.
The three additional sessions refine evolving circumstances and can include family members to make decisions a more communicative and inclusive process. Ongoing cumulative synthesis provided.
For those seeking sustained reflection and continuity.
Caregiving Compass (Family Services)
$1550 (up to four family members + loved one interview)
$200 per additional member
A structured family reflection process designed to clarify caregiving strengths, limits, and shared expectations.
Each participant completes a private consultation, followed by a facilitated family session to surface differences constructively and establish realistic roles. Includes recorded sessions and a structured Caregiving Capacity Report.
Ideal for families seeking alignment and transparency before crisis.
Why Green Is the Color of Good Brain Health
Cognitive Health · Nature
How everyday exposure to nature may support cognition, restoration, belonging, and healthy aging.
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How Your Sense of Smell Affects Memory and Cognitive Health
Cognitive Health · Memory
How the close relationship between smell, memory, and emotion may offer another way to support cognitive resilience.
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Social Connection and Cognitive Health: Why Understanding Others Matters
Cognitive Health · Social Connection
How interacting with others exercises perspective-taking, interpretation, and other capacities that help keep us cognitively engaged.
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The Power of Limits: How Adaptive Challenges Protect Cognitive Health
Cognitive Health · Resilience
Why recognizing our limits can help us find challenges that stretch our abilities while supporting cognitive resilience.
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Beyond the Breakthrough: Why Cognitive Health Needs More than a Jab
Cognitive Health · Alzheimer’s Prevention
Why emerging Alzheimer’s treatments should complement rather than replace the practices that sustain cognition, connection, and meaning.
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A New Year for Cognitive Health: Practices for Resetting and Reconnecting
Cognitive Health · Everyday Practices
How nature, storytelling, music, and reflection can help sustain cognitive engagement, identity, and connection.
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Cognitive Dignity: How to Make Geriatric Care Person-Centered
Cognitive Health· Person-Centered Care
How medical care can support identity, values, autonomy, and individual capabilities alongside cognitive health.
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Dementia Screening and Bias: When Cognitive Tests Miss the Mark
Dementia Care · Dementia Screening
Why cognitive tests can mistake cultural and technological differences for cognitive impairmenent.
Dementia Prevention Beyond the Brain: What the Lancet Report Reveals About Cognitive Health
Dementia Care · Dementia Prevention
Why reducing dementia risk requires attention to the whole person, including health, connection, meaning, and engagement.
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Dementia Prevention Strategies: Why Narrative Matters Most Before Dementia Takes Hold
Cognitive Health · Narrative
How storytelling may strengthen cognitive reserve, social connection, and resilience while preserving voice and values before decline.
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Insomnia and Dementia Prevention: What the Two Sleep Method Teaches Us
Cognitive Health · Sleep
What the relationship between insomnia and cognitive decline can teach us about sleep, nighttime waking, and brain health.
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Why Purpose Matters for Dementia: And How to Find It
Cognitive Health · Purpose
How connecting everyday activities to a larger sense of identity and direction can support purpose and cognitive health.
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The Future of Alzheimer’s Prevention May Be Personal and Narrative-Based
Dementia Care · Alzheimer’s Prevention
How personalized prevention can extend beyond biomarkers to include identity, engagement, and future care preferences.
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A Guide to Reauthoring for Cognitive Health and Dementia Prevention
Dementia Care · Narrative
How rethinking and reinterpreting our life stories can exercise memory, imagination, and narrative flexibility.
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Moral Hazard in Alzheimer’s Innovation: Are We Restoring Memory or Just Rebooting Machinery?
Cognitive Health · Alzheimer’s Innovation
Why biomedical breakthroughs should preserve more than memory by attending to meaning, relationships, and the person as a whole.
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Making Identity Resilient When Memory Fades: A Practical Guide
Dementia Care · Identity
How meaningful life stages and enduring qualities can help preserve a recognizable sense of self as memory changes.
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When Correcting Makes Dementia Worse: Rethinking Truth & Practice in Dementia Care
Dementia Care · Communication
Why responding to emotion rather than correcting facts can protect comfort, safety, and connection in dementia care.
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Dementia Is the Symptom, Not the Disease
Dementia Care · Understanding Dementia
Why understanding dementia as a syndrome rather than a single disease can reduce stigma and improve approaches to prevention and care.
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When the Cat Forgets: Breaking the Dementia Stigma through Feline Eyes
Dementia Care · Stigma
How cognitive changes in cats offer an unexpected way to reconsider stigma, vulnerability, and our expectations of memory.
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The Dementia Stigma: Why Resentment Is Better than Optimism
Dementia Care · Stigma
How resentment can become a constructive response to dementia stigma by motivating action to preserve identity and dignity.
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Rust on the Brain: How Iron Build-Up May Contribute to Alzheimer’s
Cognitive Health · Alzheimer’s Research
What research on brain iron accumulation reveals about Alzheimer’s risk, resilience, and the limits of prevention.
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Dementia Prevention and Vulnerability: What Meaningful Work Can Teach Us about Strength through Weakness
Cognitive Health · Resilience
How accepting vulnerability can cultivate imagination, empathy, and resilience rather than treating aging solely as a battle against decline.
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Dementia Care (Back to Menu)
Caregiving (Back to Menu)
Why Good Families Still Struggle with Caregiving
Caregiving · Family Dynamics
How unspoken expectations, unequal burdens, and unclear roles can strain even loving families, and why earlier conversations matter.
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The Caregiver’s Work of Memory: Understanding Connection Beyond Forgetting
Caregiving · Connection
Why caregiving can mean sustaining recognition and connection in the present rather than trying to restore perfect memory of the past.
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Caregiver Adaptability in Dementia: Lessons from Roleplaying
Caregiving · Adaptability
How experimenting with different caregiving approaches can build adaptability and reduce stress when dementia makes needs unpredictable.
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When Caregiving Consumes the Caregiver: The Role of Virtue Ethics in Finding Balance
Caregiving · Caregiver Well-Being
How compassion, patience, courage, and appropriate limits can sustain caregiving without allowing care to consume the caregiver.
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Understanding Dementia Behavior: How Empathy Can Transform Caregiver Stress
Caregiving · Dementia
How narrative-based empathy can help caregivers interpret confusing behaviors, reduce frustration, and preserve connection.
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Aging Well (Back to Menu)
Dissolving the Lifestyle Paradox: Why We Believe Healthy Habits Matter but Don’t Practice Them
Aging Well · Better Health Practices
The real challenge of healthy living is not knowing what to do, but sustaining it over time.
Fear of Falling in Older Adults: Staying Safe Without Giving Up Independence
Aging Well · Independence
How sensible precautions can reduce fall risk without allowing fear to shrink our lives, and how preserving valued capabilities can help us remain active, confident, and independent.
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Rethinking Retirement: What Are We Retiring For?
Aging Well · Purpose
Why retirement planning should consider not only financial security but also purpose, meaningful activity, flourishing, and cognitive health.
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Who Cares for the Solo Ager? Rethinking Community Care in an Individualized Society
Aging Well · Community & Belonging
How solo aging exposes the limits of professionalized care and why genuine community requires relationships, shared values, participation, and belonging.
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Aging Alone When Family Support Isn’t There
Aging Well · Solo Aging
How solo agers can preserve independence by building networks of support, using services and technology wisely, planning for future advocacy, and recognizing when changing capabilities require new forms of independence. LinkedIn
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What “Home” Really Means for Aging Well
Aging Well · Identity & Place
Why home is more than a physical location and how familiarity, identity, continuity, and belonging shape aging well.
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Fear, Aging, and Quality of Life: Are You Still Doing What You Love?
Aging Well · Independence
How reasonable fears can quietly restrict our lives and why aging well requires protecting our ability to keep doing what matters.
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Turning Gray: Aging Gracefully through Storytelling
Aging Well · Storytelling
How storytelling can support identity, cognitive engagement, emotional well-being, and our ability to adapt throughout later life.
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Advance Care & Legacy (Back to Menu)
You’re Choosing a Care Home. Where Do You Even Look for “Quality”?
Advance Care · Care Decisions
How families can look beyond ratings and regulations to consider whether a care community understands the person’s identity, values, and perspective.
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Why a Living Legacy Helps You Age Well
Legacy · Storytelling
Why legacy need not wait until the end of life and how reflection can preserve values, purpose, dignity, and clarity while we are living.
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The $1 Trillion Problem in Aging No One Is Solving: The Missing First-Person Perspective
Advance Care · Person-Centered Care
Why truly person-centered care requires hearing and preserving the individual’s own perspective, identity, and story.
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The 5 Reasons We Tell Ourselves We Don’t Need Advance Care Planning
Advance Care · Planning
How psychological, social, family, and practical barriers keep us from planning ahead, even when we know that planning matters.
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Dying Is for the Living: Rethinking Advance Care Planning for Those Left Behind
Advance Care · Family
Why planning for the end of life is also an act of care for those who may otherwise inherit uncertainty, conflict, and difficult decisions.
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Leaving a Legacy: Why Family Memory Matters More than Public Recognition
Legacy · Family Memory
Why the stories, values, objects, and memories shared within families may form a more meaningful legacy than public recognition.
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3 Pillars of Support for Families Facing Dementia at the End of Life: A Guide
Advance Care · Dementia
How timely recognition, open conversations, and person-and-carer-centered care can support families facing dementia at the end of life.
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What Is a Good Death? It’s about Being Ready
Advance Care · End of Life
Why a good death may depend less on controlling death than on accepting mortality and preparing our values and care preferences beforehand.
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Why Talking about Death Improves Quality of Life and End-of-Life Care
Advance Care · End of Life
How talking openly about death can reduce fear, clarify what matters, ease family stress, and improve alignment in end-of-life care.
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