The Mississippi Link
PEARL, Miss. – Despite the early morning drizzles, cloudy skies and chilly temperatures, more than 360 individuals participated in the Jackson-area 2009 Memory Walk Saturday, Oct. 10, to fight Alzheimer’s disease. The 8 a.m. event was held at Trustmark Park in Pearl.
Memory Walk is the nation’s largest event to raise awareness and funds for Alzheimer care, support and research. Since 1989, Memory Walk has raised more than $260 million for the cause. Mississippi walks are scheduled this fall in Amory, Biloxi, Columbus, Greenwood, Hattiesburg, Jackson, Meridian, Oxford, and Tupelo. Statewide, 172 teams have been formed, and the number is increasing. The 2009 theme is “We’re On the Move to End Alzheimer’s.”
Brandon resident Kevin Jones of Hospice Ministries, Ridgeland, Miss., served as the area walk chair. “Families who are facing problems with loved ones who have been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease are appreciative of the community support shown through Memory Walk,” Jones said. Jones also led the crowd in a warm-up exercise before the walk.
According to the Alzheimer’s Association, the disease is a brain disorder named for German physician Alois Alzheimer, who first described it in 1906. Scientists have learned a great deal about disease since then.
Today, every 71 seconds, someone is diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease, reports the association. The seventh-leading cause of death in the United States, Alzheimer is a progressive and fatal brain disease, which destroys brain cells, causing memory loss and problems with thinking and behavior.
A new report, released on World Alzheimer’s Day, Sept. 21, stated: “35 million people worldwide – a 10 percent increase over 2005 – are living with Alzheimer’s and dementia. According to the 2009 World Alzheimer’s Report, released from Alzheimer’s Disease International (ADI), the number of people with Alzheimer’s is expected to nearly double every 20 years, to 65.7 million in 2030 and 115.4 million in 2050.”
That is why advocates in the fight against it say time is of essence to find a cure.
Kathy Van Cleave, director of the Division of Alzheimer’s Disease and Other Dementia for the Mississippi Department of Mental Health and this year’s Champion for the Jackson metro area cause, lead the Memory Walk at Trustmark Park. “Most of you all know my story,” she said as she briefly addressed the crowd. “We dealt with Alzheimer’s on my mother’s side of the family for 19 consecutive years.” Cleave’s late maternal grandmother, who had cared for an older sister with the disease, later developed Alzheimer’s.
Now, her grandmother on her father’s side of the family has it.
“My hope is that my children, who are with me today, will be able to say [30 years from now] ‘that we found a cure,’ because of the work [we’re doing today].”
Participants in Jackson-area walk say they were more than happy to get up early Saturday morning for such a cause. “Alzheimer’s affects everybody,” said Pearl resident Tommy Burnham. “My grandfather had it, so I came out this morning in honor of him,” he said. Burnham was a booth volunteer for the distribution of Memory Walk banners and other paraphernalia walkers purchased to honor their Alzheimer’s loved one.
Gail M. Brown, editor of The Mississippi Link newspaper and online news, and her son Edison III walked in honor of several family members. “Alzheimer’s has hit our family hard,” said Brown, an only child and principal caregiver of her 79 year-old father, who is now bed ridden and speechless. “I am walking in honor of my dad and in memory of my aunt and uncle — two of his siblings,” she said. “I guest as a journalist today; I am more subjective than objective. I’m here to provide media coverage, but also join in the fight against this awful, devastating disease that has – in a sense – robbed me of my father. Sometimes he doesn’t know who I am.”
Brown, her son and The Mississippi Link contributing writer Janice Neal Vincent, Ph.D., formed a sub-team to the Baptist Adult Day Health Services team of Clinton where her father attended for two years.
Even those who do not have family members affected by the disease were passionate about participating in the walk. Latrina Ross, a nurse on the Brandon Nursing and Rehabilitation walking team, is one of them. “This is something we participate in every year and we have a wonderful turnout every year,” she said. “We have residents with Alzheimer’s, and it is a handful to take care of them, but it is a wonderful thing when we can take care of them.”
Other activities of the Jackson-area Memory Walk included a brief Alzheimer’s information video shown on the Mississippi Brave’s big screen, door prizes, healthy refreshments and a performance by a Byram dance group.
Executives of the Mississippi Alzheimer’s Association and Walk Chairman Jones expressed “profound gratitude” to the sponsors, participants, exhibitors and others for championing the cause and making it a “huge” success.
For more information on Alzheimer’s and about other scheduled Mississippi Memory Walks, contact the Alzheimer’s Helpline at (800) 272-3900.or log on to http://www.alz.org/ms/index.asp.
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