Speaker 1: Seven forty four are here fifty five care Seed Talk
Speaker 1: Station Bryan Time. I was happy to welcome to the
Speaker 1: fifty five KRC Morning Show a subject matter near and
Speaker 1: dear to my heart for all the wrong reasons. Alzheimer's sucks,
Speaker 1: and no one knows more about that than Jackie Williams.
Speaker 1: She's a program manager for the Greatest Sincinti Chapter of
Speaker 1: the Alzheimer's Association. Before being joining the Association, she served
Speaker 1: as a volunteer for close to ten years, helping to
Speaker 1: educate those in the community regarding challenges individuals face with
Speaker 1: living with dementia. She was her mother's full time caregiver
Speaker 1: when she was in the later stages of dementia, with
Speaker 1: hands on experience, her passion to continue her work and
Speaker 1: serving this population letter to join the staff at the
Speaker 1: Alzheimer's Association. Welcome Jackie Williams. Let me start by thanking
Speaker 1: you for your hard work with the Alzheimer's Association. My
Speaker 1: father struggled with Alzheimer's dementia and ultimately lost his life
Speaker 1: as a consequence, and my mom was his primary caregiver
Speaker 1: and oh, my God, as well as anybody, it takes
Speaker 1: a huge toll on the family and most notably the
Speaker 1: primary caregiver. Welcome to the program.
Speaker 2: Oh, thank you, Brian. I appreciate you inviting us to
Speaker 2: be here today, and I'm so sorry to hear about
Speaker 2: your journey with with the disease. And you're absolutely correct.
Speaker 2: The toll on caregivers is tremendous and we work every
Speaker 2: day out in communities just making sure we're providing programs
Speaker 2: and resources and services to help families and caregivers through
Speaker 2: that journey. It is a long haul. Oftentimes as you
Speaker 2: are you.
Speaker 1: Witness, yes, a quite a long haul. And it's just
Speaker 1: heart heartbreaking too. You know, my father was is the
Speaker 1: sharpest knife in the drawer, always quick witted, always on
Speaker 1: his face. You could you can never outwit my dad.
Speaker 1: And to have him struggle with and deteriorate and ultimately
Speaker 1: pass as a consequence of this was just sort of like,
Speaker 1: you know, throwing a salt on the wound. And I
Speaker 1: note the numbers. I've been looking at the numbers that, yeah,
Speaker 1: I have in front of me, six point seven million
Speaker 1: Americans and to county or twenty twenty three, one in
Speaker 1: nine aged sixty five or older are living with Alzheimer's.
Speaker 1: These numbers just keep going up. Is there any do
Speaker 1: we know anything about where it comes from or why
Speaker 1: the numbers increase every year?
Speaker 2: So well, aging is definitely the number one risk factor,
Speaker 2: and so as our population in this baby boom generation
Speaker 2: is aging and it's such a huge piece of our population. Yes,
Speaker 2: the numbers are increasing, but the good news is we
Speaker 2: have been making incredible strides in research that are allowing
Speaker 2: us to find treatment to help slow down that progression.
Speaker 2: We still do not have a cure, We still do
Speaker 2: not have a prevention, but every day those research projects
Speaker 2: are getting us closer and closer to getting us to
Speaker 2: what our mission is, a world without Alzheimer's and all
Speaker 2: other dementia. So, as an association, while we are Alzheimer's Association,
Speaker 2: we do care and support individuals who have a form
Speaker 2: of dementia that may not be Alzheimer's. Well.
Speaker 1: Tonight's Empower You Seminar and it begins at seven pm.
Speaker 1: It's either virtual or live. You can go to two
Speaker 1: twenty five North On Boulevard to participate in person. You
Speaker 1: can log in from the comfort of your own home.
Speaker 1: Just go to empower You America dot org. Please register
Speaker 1: ahead of time now the name of the seminar is
Speaker 1: ten Warning Signs of Alzheimer's. What is the Is there
Speaker 1: a first leading indicator that might be a red flag
Speaker 1: that people might want to start paying attention to, or
Speaker 1: is it just vary from person to person.
Speaker 2: It definitely can vary from person to person, most definitely,
Speaker 2: and it's a lot of it is based on what
Speaker 2: form of dementia they may have and what kind of
Speaker 2: signs they may start demonstrating. And so one of the
Speaker 2: things that is always I think a bit confusing and
Speaker 2: troubling for a lot of people. You know, how many
Speaker 2: times is we're getting older, we start forgetting somebody's name
Speaker 2: or trying to figure out, like what was that? And
Speaker 2: oftentimes I'll hear people just probably jokingly but maybe not saying,
Speaker 2: oh boy, I must be getting to Alzheimer's or I
Speaker 2: must be getting dementia. And that may not necessarily be
Speaker 2: the case. It could be attributed to something else. You know,
Speaker 2: stress can manifest in terms of like all of a sudden,
Speaker 2: you know, your cognitive abilities and your thinking process might
Speaker 2: be hindered by stress. So it may be that or
Speaker 2: it just may be normal aging. And there is a
Speaker 2: difference between the things that we experience as normal aging
Speaker 2: and what could be what i'll call crossing the line
Speaker 2: and not necessarily normal aging. That we would encourage individuals
Speaker 2: to go and get checked and make sure that they're
Speaker 2: working with their physic to just evaluate and monitor and
Speaker 2: try to get any type of an early diagnosis, because
Speaker 2: that's where the most success is in finding treatment and
Speaker 2: being able to have a more impactful journey through this disease.
Speaker 1: Now, in terms of getting a diagnosis, okay, you're talking
Speaker 1: about tonight the ten warning signs of Alzheimer's. Let's say
Speaker 1: someone has enough of these indicators that are like, okay, well,
Speaker 1: I really should schedule an appointment. How is Alzheimer's diagnosed?
Speaker 1: Where yes, this is early onset of Alzheimer's, or no,
Speaker 1: it's just you just didn't remember the person's name, right.
Speaker 2: Right, Yeah. So you know, there's a variety of different
Speaker 2: ways that we go through and try and get individuals diagnosed.
Speaker 2: The first one, actually, in my opinion, starts with the
Speaker 2: family or those close by the individual and start taking
Speaker 2: notice and really making sure that the individual is aware
Speaker 2: that some of these things are happening with them. Oftentimes,
Speaker 2: there's a lot of denial there's like, oh, no, I'm
Speaker 2: just getting old. I don't I don't need anything. I
Speaker 2: don't I don't need to address that. And so oftentimes
Speaker 2: tracking and recognizing and encouraging somebody to go and get
Speaker 2: further assessment. And if you're lucky enough like I was
Speaker 2: to be able to attend those doctor's appointments with my mom,
Speaker 2: I kept a lot of notes in terms of like,
Speaker 2: here are the changes I'm seeing, and when it's happening,
Speaker 2: and why it might be happening and whatnot, and that
Speaker 2: helps the physicians know that, yep, this is a little
Speaker 2: bit more than what normal aging might be. There is
Speaker 2: a lot of testing that happens, and I will tell
Speaker 2: you right now, a lot of it will be physicians
Speaker 2: trying to rule out other things that it could be
Speaker 2: that might be causing this cognitive impairment or decline, because
Speaker 2: there's a lot of things that could have an impact
Speaker 2: on that, and so finding out what it may not
Speaker 2: be kind of helps lead to Okay, do we take
Speaker 2: that next step, which is potentially MRIs pet scans and
Speaker 2: spinal taps. The spinal tap fluid can be an indicator
Speaker 2: of whether or not you have Alzheimer's, but The great
Speaker 2: news is we are getting really close in our research
Speaker 2: to a point where we might find a day and
Speaker 2: we're really close to it where you can get the
Speaker 2: diagnosis through a biomarker blood test, and being able to
Speaker 2: do that makes it so much more available to individuals
Speaker 2: who might have cost prohibitations to really paying for some
Speaker 2: of those tests, but also in some of our rural
Speaker 2: areas where they don't have access to some of those things,
Speaker 2: and making sure that we're getting them diagnosed as well.
Speaker 1: Okay, and real quickly here because we're out of time.
Speaker 1: I acknowledge that, so my producer knows. I am paying
Speaker 1: attention to the clock. But once diagnosed, is there a
Speaker 1: treatment protocol? I mean, we don't have a cure for
Speaker 1: it yet, So are there exercises or you know, brain
Speaker 1: challenges or things that we can do to slow down
Speaker 1: the progression or is it just okay, you got the information,
Speaker 1: prepare yourself for the worst.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I know. There's a couple of things. One is
Speaker 2: definitely we have a whole series on healthy living for
Speaker 2: your brain and body, and there's things that we can do,
Speaker 2: even as healthy non diagnosed individuals can do to try
Speaker 2: and start warding off maybe the onset of dementia, but
Speaker 2: here more recently, we actually have a couple of treatments
Speaker 2: that are actually slowing down the progression of the disease,
Speaker 2: and they are very new, like here within the last
Speaker 2: couple of years. So we are working with the public
Speaker 2: health policies and hospitals and insurance companies to make sure
Speaker 2: that we are allowing good, ample accessibility to those treatments
Speaker 2: and making sure that we can get those individuals in
Speaker 2: the loop and being treated.
Speaker 1: Wonderful, wonderful log in tonight or show with two twenty
Speaker 1: five North and Bolivar. Jackie Williams's going to do a
Speaker 1: deep dive into the balance of these maybe even give
Speaker 1: you some hope for down the road. Jackie Williams, it's
Speaker 1: been a real pleasure having you on the program. Fascinating
Speaker 1: discussion and fingers crossed and money coming your way from
Speaker 1: folks in my listening audience want to help try to
Speaker 1: solve this this insidious disease. Log In and Power You
Speaker 1: America tonight or show up at the Empower You studios.
Speaker 1: Thank you for what you do. Jackie. It's been a
Speaker 1: real pleasure having you on the program.
Speaker 2: Thank you. We appreciate it so much.
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Speaker 1: five KRC the talk station. What's up, everybody, It's Peter Schrager.
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