“I am who I was raised to be, but now I must become who I need to be.”
Recently diagnosed with young onset Parkinson’s disease, Asabi (A-sha-be) moves her young family from Africa to the UK. The upheaval throws her whole sense of self into question. Challenged by haunting visions and stigmatised by her community, she struggles to reconcile her changing identity with her culture, Christianity, diagnosis, and motherhood. Feeling alone, she turns to her Aunty Tiwa, who is living with Lewy body dementia, to find answers.
This inspiring journey, based on true events, brings a fresh and informed perspective to the link between Parkinson’s disease and Lewy body dementia, while highlighting everyday ways we can improve our own brain health.
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Paperback version available to purchase on Amazon from September 21st 2024.
The Creators
This comic was a collaborative effort with multiple people involved. The primary creators are:
Alanah Knibb is an artist and science communicator who specialises in combining art and science through sequential art and comic books. Her work aims to create space, opportunities, and inspiration to empower communities to utilise science for collective development and social change. A former neuroscientist, Alanah holds an MSc in Science Communication and Public Engagement from the University of Edinburgh. Her work has been exhibited at UNESCO headquarters in Paris, Expo 2020 Dubai (held in 2022), and most recently, Ars Electronica 2024.
Omotola Thomas, diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease (PD) at 35, is the founder and Chair of Trustees of Parkinson’s Africa – the first, and only, PD charity established to support and empower the pan-African PD community. She also serves as a board member for the World Parkinson’s Coalition and as an advisor and patient-advocate for multiple PD organisations. She is an ambassador for the 6th World Parkinson Congress and a founding member of PD Avengers – an international group of advocates determined to end Parkinson’s. She obtained her bachelor’s degree (in Systems Engineering) and her master’s degree (in Project Management) from the George Washington University, Washington, DC. Omotola is also a writer and speaker, and loves listening to music and singing.
Angelika is an academic Neurologist and senior research fellow at the UCL Institute of Neurology. Her clinical and research interest is the aetiology, diagnosis and treatment of Parkinson's disease dementia and Dementia with Lewy Bodies. She is currently leading a research project using ultra-high field MRI to understand the changes in structural and functional circuits underlying hallucinations and cognitive fluctuations in Lewy body disease, funded by an Alzheimer's Research UK Clinical Fellowship. Her ultimate research aim is to use neuroimaging techniques to better understand the mechanisms of Lewy body disease and develop new non-invasive treatment approaches for this distressing condition.
