My Dad Had Dementia. He Also Had Facebook.

In the spring of 2018, I received a Facebook-friend request from an imposter—someone pretending to be my father. At least, that’s what I thought. The profile used my dad’s photos, but his name was spelled incorrectly. I reported it and went on with my life.

Less than a month later, my dad was diagnosed with dementia. At first, my sister and I didn’t think much about his social-media use; we were busy worrying about his new tendency to elope—the term for when dementia patients wander away from their confines or, driven by anxiety or confusion, attempt to escape. (Once, he stole back the car keys we had hidden to keep him from driving off; twice, he simply bought a new car.) But then we noticed his Facebook profile. Though it was the one he’d long been using, with his name spelled