The Wesley Manor Crushing Dementia on The Longest Day walk kicks off on Thursday, June 20 at Wesley Manor Retirement Community for community members to walk in support of dementia research and programming.
The event will kick off on Wednesday, June 20 at 4:30 p.m. with food catered by Mamaw’s Dog’z at the Health Care Pavilion, and ice cream and pretzels will be available.
At 5:30 p.m., a 1-mile walk around Wesley Manor will kick off, and participants must present a $10 participation fee that will be utilized to support the Alzheimer’s Association.
The event will also host a bake sale from 1 p.m. to 5:30 p.m., a silent auction and raffle prizes and a t-shirt sale.
Alzheimer’s and Brain Awareness Month is observed in June as a means of spreading awareness and eliminating the stigma associated with Alzheimer’s disease and dementia. Throughout the month, people from across the globe are encouraged to don purple and explore ways to raise funds for cure research and to prevent the onset of Alzheimer’s disease and dementia.
Dementia was first recorded in Ancient Egyptian texts from 2000 B.C. before Turkish doctor Artheus categorized dementia as a similar disorder to delirium. The disease was then eventually noted as “dementia” by Saint Isidore, archbishop of Seville, in his book around 600 A.D., which further led to Alois Alzheimer describing the case of Auguste Deter, 50, who became the first recorded case of Alzheimer’s disease.
In 1983, President Ronald Regan declared June as Alzheimer’s and Brain Awareness Month.
Wesley Manor Memory Care Director Angie Pitzer stated during last year’s event that celebrating the month has become a tradition at the retirement communities across the county to spread awareness and help families and individuals experiencing connections with dementia or Alzheimer’s disease to become more educated and live their best lives.
“For the longest time, and I think it still kind of continues, it’s something that people hide,” Pitzer said. “It’s something that people don’t want other people to know about. A lot of people don’t understand. You can tell somebody that your mom has lung failure or kidney failure. You can tell them that they have heart disease, and they totally understand what that is, and you don’t expect somebody with COPD to run a marathon. You don’t expect somebody with heart disease to be able to do the same things as somebody without the disease, but when you say somebody has dementia or Alzheimer’s they think that they just forget things.”
Pitzer stated that the effects of Alzheimer’s disease and dementia extends far beyond memory loss and can become a serious issue for those affected.
“Dementia and Alzheimer’s affects every single thought process, and it makes it impossible for that person to function normally, but yet we still expect them to,” Pitzer said. “In order to make their lives as good as it can be and keep them at home as long as they can be, we need people that understand what the disease is and how to help those people and help the families of those people.”
For more information about Alzheimer’s Awareness Month, visit alz.org.