Posted: February 26, 2026
By: Emm Campbell (with files from Dayna Park)
Donna and Catriona MacEachern.
Donna MacEachern smiles when she thinks about the many ways her brother, Andrew, looked for the bright side in any situation.
He was a remarkable person, she says.
“He didn’t feel like he had any barriers. He believed he could do anything he wanted and, if he couldn’t do one thing, he would do something else.”
Despite having Down syndrome and standing just 4’9”, Andrew did a lot by any measure. When he was 20, he travelled from Japan to Australia on his own. Three years later, in 1983, he became the first Nova Scotian to win a medal for Canada — a silver in backstroke — at the International Special Olympics Games. He often campaigned with his father, Bill, who was a member of the provincial assembly. And for 36 years, he worked at the Victoria General Hospital in Halifax, earning the nickname ‘the mayor’ for greeting patients and visitors alike with signature Cape Breton charm.
“If he thought you were having a bad day or weren’t doing well, he would call to see how you were,” MacEachern recalls. “He was a very considerate and kind person.”
Remembering a remarkable life by making a difference
Even after being diagnosed with Alzheimer’s at the age of 50 by H’s , Andrew continued doing what he wanted—swimming, working, living independently — for the next 12 years, always with the help of his family. MacEachern says the family was heartbroken when he passed away in 2023 at age 62.
“We didn’t want the loss to be remembered; we wanted his remarkable life to be remembered,” she says. “We thought about what we could do to honour him.”
With her sister, Catriona, MacEachern established The Andrew MacEachern Award for Alzheimer’s Research at Dal’s Faculty of Medicine to support research on the disease and, hopefully one day, a cure. They were inspired in part by studies suggesting the lifetime risk of developing the disease is . “There’s not a lot of research in Canada about that among people with Down syndrome,” she says.
MacEachern dreams of a future where no one will be stolen away by Alzheimer’s. By sharing Andrew’s story, and his belief that anything is possible, she hopes it will motivate others to make a similar gift.
“Every little bit is going to allow more research to be done, which means there will be better medications or a time when there won’t be Alzheimer’s because we’ll have figured out how to prevent it,” she says.
It’s nice to think this is Andrew’s contribution to benefit the lives of other people. — Donna MacEachern