Alzheimer's Association
Guest Speaker Melissa Goldman from the Alzheimer’s Association, California Southland Chapter, brought us a new focus on Alzheimer’s: taking care of the care givers. This chapter’s mission is, in part, to provide and enhance support for all affected, to educate family and caregivers on how to deal with patients with the disease. It also gives the care-givers support by helping arrange time away from the patient, to continue to live their own lives. Sometimes the patient outlives the care giver.
There is a twenty-four hour helpline for caregivers, 1-800-272-3900. Call if you have questions or suspicions about yourself or a loved one. This project is funded in part from funds received from the County under the Older Americans Act, which means your tax dollars are working for you.
It is important to know that Alzheimer’s is a progressive disease, but not a mental disorder like dementia. Dementia is also a form of mental deterioration with some of the same symptoms, such as memory loss and impaired language and judgment. But dementia has moments of lucidity and can be treated and even reversed.
There is no cure yet for Alzheimer’s, but we understand the disease better now. It starts in the hippocampus, where memories are stored, which makes personalities what they are, and then spreads to the rest of the cells of the brain, damaging and destroying them and their capacity to make us functional.
The disease can last as long as eight to ten years, and at the end the patient is not the person the family had known at the start.
Alzheimer’s is a family disaster, and the cost of time otherwise productively spent, but now dedicated to care giving, is reckoned at least $1.4 billion dollars yearly. As the aging population increases as a percentage of our country, the care cost could bankrupt the health care system.
But cheer up. Not every older person gets Alzheimer’s. Brain food items, such as learning new skills and using both sides of your brain, can help keep away the disease.
And behavior which can help stave off the onset of Alzheimer’s seems to be to be the kind where you are involved in activities where you interact a great deal with others. Living in social isolation is a factor present in the start of the disease. So be an active Rotarian, and in serving others you will help yourself as well.