In 1983, President Ronald Reagan declared November as National Alzheimer's Disease Awareness Month.
At that time, fewer than 2 million people in the United States were affected. That number has grown to more than 5 million. Sunday, WXPR presented a panel discussion on the disease and how it will likely be a larger concern among a growing population of seniors. Dr.Chris Koeppl of the Ministry Health Care Memory Diagnostic Clinic says as an example, many people forget someone's name...
".....and that might be the names of people. The difference between normal aging and dementia is the name comes to you. You think about it for a second and 'oh, yea, that's who that was' or somebody reminds you and you immediately know. If you don't immediately know and it doesn't come to you, that may be more of a concern...."
Diane Vanlandingham provided care for her father who died from the disease....
"my mom and dad's generation didn't talk about it much. where our generation talks about it and gets the word out. Some want to pretend it isn't happening to them. We were brought up in a society where you can talk about it, mental illness, or something to do with the brain isn't an issue you need to hide from..."
Alzheimer's is the sixth leading cause of death in the United States and the only one that can't be prevented, slowed or cured.
WXPR will rebroadcast the forum Wednesday at 3:00 p.m. at 91.7 FM, and 100.9 FM Ironwood..Look for it later on our website. Some technical problems in loading the program here prevented us from putting the program here. Stop back for the full program later this week.
