Doris Hoffmann, 94; Featured in Film on Alzheimer’s Disease

Doris Goodday Hoffmann, 94, an Alzheimer’s patient whose descent into dementia was chronicled in her daughter’s Oscar-nominated film, died Tuesday of complications related to the disease at a nursing home in Oakland.

Hoffman’s daughter, filmmaker Deborah Hoffmann, spent many years filming her mother. The 1994 film “Complaints of a Dutiful Daughter” won more than 30 international awards, including a Peabody and an Emmy, and it has helped doctors, patients and family members cope with the disease.

Hoffmann was born in San Francisco and earned a bachelor’s degree from UC Berkeley in 1930. She later earned a master’s degree in social work from Columbia University. She was married to Banesh Hoffmann, a colleague and biographer of Albert Einstein. In 1986, she moved back to California to be near her children after her husband’s death in New York.