Raise awareness, funds for Alzheimer’s

This fall the Alzheimer’s Association’s Walk to End Alzheimer’s has returned to an in-person event Oct. 16 in Pittsburgh. The aims of this annual walk are to raise awareness and funds for Alzheimer’s care, support and research. The Walk to End Alzheimer’s is full of flowers, each carried by someone committed to ending this disease. The importance of these walks cannot be overstated with the growing number of Pennsylvania residents: over 280,000 individuals are living with Alzheimer’s with a total of 400,000 with this disease and other forms of dementia.

As Alzheimer’s Association volunteers who advocate for legislation to address these aims, we appreciate how this disease continues to affect our family, friends and community. One particular concern is the alarming number of unpaid caregivers in our state with 500,000 providing 622,000 hours of care.

We want to thank Reps. Dan Frankel and Summer Lee, as well as Sen. Jay Costa for their support of Act 20, which made important changes to the Pennsylvania Family Caregiver Support Act that was passed and signed this summer. This bipartisan-endorsed law will provide enhanced support services for the unpaid caregivers who arrange medical appointments, juggle finances and insurance companies, and most importantly, care for the complexities of an individual with dementia. Benefits counseling, education and training and care management are some of the support services that will be available.

On the federal level, the bipartisan Alzheimer’s Caregiver Support Act was introduced this Congressional session to address caregiver support on the national level. We want to thank Congressmen Mike Doyle and Conor Lamb for their leadership on this issue through their cosponsorship of this bill. And Congress has invested millions of dollars into research funding to the National Institutes of Health to address the growing number of persons who are newly diagnosed.

These successful legislative and research initiatives are the results of the commitment and work on behalf of the Alzheimer’s Association’s volunteers, many of whom are caring for or have lost loved ones to this disease.

ALEXANDRA BORELLI

Lincoln Place

THERESA CHALICH

Squirrel Hill