National Alzheimers Disease Month

Alzheimers Disease and the Caregivers of Alzheimer's Patients Recognized During the Month of November

As a way to recognize all the caregivers of Alzheimers patients and create awareness of Alzheimers disease, November is known as National Alzheimer’s Disease Month and National Caregiver Month.

President Ronald Reagan designated November as National Alzheimers Disease Awareness Month in 1983. At the time, fewer than 2 million Americans had Alzheimers; today, the number of people with the disease has soared to nearly 5.4 million. In addition, in the United States, there are more than 15 million Alzheimer’s and dementia caregivers.

Alzheimers is also called Senile Dementia of the Alzheimer Type (SDAT) or simply Alzheimers. It is a disease. Alzheimers is the most common cause of dementia. The disease produces physical change in the brain. There is shrinking in some areas of the brain. Widening in the others of the brain. These changes cause the connections inside to break and disrupt the brain’s electrical signals. Dementia can also be caused by a variety of other factors, but Alzheimers disease accounts for 50 to 80 percent of dementia cases.

How can you get involved?

Ways to get involved in National Alzheimers Disease Awareness Month:

• Educate your colleagues about Alzheimers Disease
• Encourage friends to wear purple in November
• Host a Purple with a Purpose Event
• Decorate your office or home door purple
• Light your building purple
• Send communications in purple
• Turn your Facebook icon purple
• Hang purple ribbons or a banner on your building or home
• Know the 10 warning signs of Alzheimers
• Chat on the new social networking site ALZConnected.org
• Create an individualized action plan, go to AlzheimersNavigator.org

For in-depth information about Alzheimer’s disease, visit alz.org. Or click here to find a support group in your area. If you’re a caregiver for a loved one suffering from Alzheimer’s disease, there are a great number of senior living options available to help, including senior residences with Alzheimers Specialty Services.

To begin your search for senior living residences, visit AlternativesforSeniors.com. There you can easily find a senior apartment, independent-living, assisted-living, alzheimer’s specialty or other continuing-care community where seniors can remain safe and in great care.

 

Please Note: Due to the internet search engines and their ability to process text but not special characters such as an apostrophe, we have had to remove the apostrophe from the word "Alzheimer's". We know the word should always appear as "Alzheimer's" and we are sorry for incorrectly posting the word as "Alzheimers". We hope our valued readers will understand.

 

BLOG Date: November 6, 2013

Writer: Ryan Allen