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<\/p>\nFamily caregiving is having a moment in the spotlight.<\/p>\n
Just in time for National Family Caregivers Month, Marvel star Chris Hemsworth is releasing a new documentary, A Road Trip to Remember, chronicling an emotional motorcycle trip in Australia that he took with his dad, Craig, now 7\ufeff1, who was recently diagnosed with Alzheimer\u2019s disease. The goal of the epic road trip was to revisit the places where the Hemsworth family had once lived in Melbourne and the remote outback, reconnect with friends and explore memories from decades past, in an effort to slow the patriarch\u2019s cognitive decline.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe know that revisiting past experiences by talking to someone about it , even using objects from the past or places from the past, is a great way to boost our cognition. This is what we call reminiscence therapy,\u201d explain\ufeffsDr. Suraj Samtani, a dementia specialist and clinical psychologist at the University of New South Wales\u2019 Centre for Healthy Brain Ageing, who advises\ufeff \ufeff and supports\ufeff Chris in his plans throughout the documentary.<\/p>\n
\u201cFor Craig, in living with dementia and trying to cope with the changes that he\u2019s facing,\u201d says Samtani, \ufeff\u201csharing his life stories through the power of reminiscence therapy is going to be really beneficial for his brain. If you want to work out your body, you do exercises like lifting weights to build your muscles. Well, for our brain, we can do the same thing by practicing retrieving memories from the past.\u201d\ufeff<\/p>\n
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![\"two](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/108828_National%20Geographic-Craig%20Parry_2.jpg\" "\\"Chris")
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While talking around the campfire, Craig shares concerns about the future with his son.<\/p>\n
Craig Parry\/National Geographic<\/p>\n
Show highlights<\/p>\n
Chris and Craig begin the epic road trip with a return to their one-time family home in Melbourne \u2014 recreated to look exactly as it did in the 1990s \u2014 to evoke deep memories in Craig, which can help with cognitive function. When Chris\u2019s mom, Leonie, joins them, the trio watches a silly VHS tape of a homemade movie Chris made as a teen. \u201c[Chris] used to say, \u2018I\u2019m going to Hollywood.\u2019 And we\u2019d sort of chuckle and say, \u2018Oh, yeah. What\u2019s your backup?\u2019 [He\u2019d say, I] don\u2019t need a backup \u2014 I\u2019m going to Hollywood,\u201d Craig jokes. \u201cTo see your dad, who has been in control for so many years and been in charge, and now to see such vulnerability there, I want to take that from him,\u201d Chris explains. \u201cI want to help him and figure it out.\u201d<\/p>\n After being honored with a spiritual ceremony welcoming them back to the community, Chris and Craig embark on an overnight campout. Craig admits to his son that he fears that his illness will make him a burden to his family. An emotional Chris barely holds back the tears, telling his dad, \u201cYou\u2019re not going to be a burden, mate. We\u2019re all in it together. We\u2019ll take care of you just as you took care of us.\u201d<\/p>\n A Road Trip to Remember is just one in a new crop of films shedding light on the impact of family caregiving on loved ones and their caregivers. Actor Bradley Cooper released a documentary on PBS in June called Caregiving <\/a>about the importance of caregivers and his role as part of the care team for his dad, Charles, who died from lung cancer in 2011. More recently, entrepreneur and model Emma Heming-Willis opened up in her best-selling memoir, The Unexpected Journey<\/a>, about being a caregiver for her husband<\/a>, movie star Bruce Willis, in the wake of his frontotemporal dementia diagnosis<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cThe increased visibility that recent celebrity books and documentaries have brought to the issue of caregiving takes an often hidden issue and brings it forward,\u201d says Rita B. Choula, senior director of caregiving at the AARP Public Policy Institute.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Family caregiving is having a moment in the spotlight. Just in time for National Family Caregivers Month, Marvel…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":143683,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[20552,6426,32097,1549,146,88390,67949,85,46],"class_list":["post-143682","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entertainment","tag-caregiver","tag-caregiving","tag-chris-hemsworth","tag-documentary","tag-entertainment","tag-family-caregiver","tag-family-caregiving","tag-il","tag-israel"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/143682","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=143682"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/143682\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/143683"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=143682"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=143682"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=143682"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nChris and mom Leonie discuss how he has\u00a0two copies of the risk gene<\/a>\u00a0for Alzheimer\u2019s, but says it’s something he chooses not to worry about now. “I’d rather just continue on with life,” he says. “It’s not a problem at this point, and it may never be. I’m far more focused on my dad right now.”
\nFather and son motorcycle deep into the outback to Bulman, where Craig worked as a wild bull wrangler when Chris was a child. Chris sets up a reunion with Spencer, Craig\u2019s pal from 35 years ago, and they are all greeted warmly by old friends. At one point, Chris is taken aback when Craig shows signs of confusion, a symptom of his illness.<\/p>\n