Like 15.4 million other Alzheimer’s caregivers in the United States, I wear lots of hats: wife, sister, daughter, friend, volunteer, business owner and mother.
My three — almost perfect — little boys fill my days with their chatter. I fill theirs with my rules and regulations. Of course there are the diaper changes, along with lots of wandering, tantrums, food strikes, lack of sleep (theirs and mine), and my personal favorite: inappropriate social behaviors. Caring for my boys is exhausting but rewarding. I know that if I do my job right, they should grow up to be fine young men.
While it may sound like this situation is exclusive to mothers of young children, the sad reality is that this scenario also represents the future for millions of people who find themselves responsible for supporting their loved ones who develop Alzheimer’s disease.
I know this firsthand. Two-thirds of Americans with Alz-heimer’s disease are women, and in 1981 my grandmother was diagnosed with “dementia; probable Alzheimer’s Disease.” My family watched painfully for 11 years as she gradually forgot our names, my grandfather’s name, her own name, how to dress, how to walk and how to feed herself. She even forgot how to swallow.
At age 63, my father was diagnosed with younger-onset Alzheimer’s, and I found myself stepping into the caregiving role my mother had fulfilled for my grandmother upon her diagnosis 20 years earlier. The idea of having to parent your parents is something no child ever wants to endure. Suddenly, instead of looking forward to early retirement, my dad found himself facing a death sentence. And I, only a recent college graduate at the time, joined the ranks of the millions of Alzheimer’s caregivers in our country, 70 percent of whom are women.
Caring for my father was physically, emotionally and financially draining. With one in three seniors affected by Alzheimer’s or other dementias, many families just like mine are all too familiar with this struggle. Last year alone, families spent 17.5 billion hours of time as caregivers for someone with Alzheimer’s, valued at more than $216 billion in wages.
With women more likely than men to be Alzheimer’s patients and caregivers, we now — more than ever — need to come together to fight this disease that’s rapidly becoming the greatest health crisis of the 21st century. Awareness is important, but it’s not a cure.
Women largely bear the burden of the Alzheimer’s crisis.
No matter what hat you normally wear: mother, wife, sister, daughter, friend, volunteer, or caregiver, please add “advocate” and give a voice to those who cannot advocate for themselves. Together, we can make our voices heard within our respective communities and throughout Congress. Together, we will stop Alzheimer’s.
Sara Allen Abbott is a partner at Main Street Media Group, a social media consulting company, and a founding member of Women Against Alzheimer’s. She lives in Hingham. “As You Were Saying” is a regular Herald feature. We invite readers to submit guest columns of no more than 600 words. Columns are subject to editing and become Herald property.
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