Now June is Alzheimer's
and Brain Awareness Month.
Right now, more than 60,000 peoe
in San Diego and Imperial Counts
are living with Alzheimer's dis,
and more than 160,000 families and friends
are providing care here to talk about.
More about how this is really
impacting San Diego's is David Crean.
He's with the Alzheimer's Association and
the San Diego Imperial chapter board member,
longtime volunteer leader,
long distance care provider as .
Good morning.
Good morning and thank you for having me.
Of course, I do want to dive rit
into some of the warning signs,
how to help family members reale
that this is something that's
going to impact their life.
Yeah. Sir, if you think about it's, you know,
you have this degeneration of these neurons,
these brain cells and 1st to be impact is is.
Memory, it's language, it's thinking.
So if you start thinking about, you know,
those early warning signs, it's confusion,
it's not remembering things, you know,
having difficulty remembering ns
and faces and you know places to
go when you're when you're driv.
So there's a, you know,
we give a a presentation to the community.
We call it the 10 early signs
of Alzheimer's and dementia.
And you know, I would encourage you to,
to attend those events.
It's really important.
I mean it must be a hard
conversation to have.
When you're talking about
these cognitive science,
it is a very difficult conversa,
but it's a conversation that is
needed whether it's with family,
loved ones, caretakers,
having that conversation with
the patient and their neurologit
or their general physician.
It's an absolutely necessary
conversation to have.
So this is a really special monh
for you guys share with us how
the Alzheimer's Association is
is involved here in San Diego.
Yeah, so one wear purple.
Join me in wearing purple to get out.
You know, awareness for for
Alzheimer's and dementia.
June is Alzheimer's and
Brain Awareness Month,
so thank you for bringing that .
But you know, the Alzheimer's
Association does a number of th,
whether it's care and support,
research, advocacy up in in
Sacramento as well as in Washin.
And just bring overall a greater
awareness to Alzheimer's
and other forms of dementia.
And it seems like there really
is a sense of community.
You said you were personally impacted.
My family as well, my grandmothr
passed away from Alzheimer's.
So that must be such an importat
part of bringing people together
to understand how to live
with the disease like this.
It is. So I do a lot on sort oft
care and support and being a log
distance caretaker as you mentid
in your preliminary comments.
It's incredibly important.
It's important to tell my story.
So I'm inspiring others to tell their story.
I'm encouraging him to get that out there
and you know it's it's very difficult.
My father lives in New York,
obviously here 2500 miles.
It makes it very,
very difficult to provide the te
level of care and support that e
needs back in Western New York.
And tell us here in San Diego,
how can we find you?
What can we do to get involved?
Because especially during this month,
this is a reminder,
but we need to know all year ar.
Yeah. So go to the website, alzg
or you can call a 24/7 line, which is
1-800-272-3900 and just get involved,
right. You know, get involved ad
volunteer and give a, you know.
Give back to the community,
is there any type of fundraisers that people
can get involved in throughout the year?
Yeah, especially in the in the month of June,
there's a number of, you know,
fun events that are going on.
I'm actually participating in af
tournament the longest day of the year,
which is you know,
when the the sun is out the mos,
which is a perfect day for that.
But you know, a number of people
doing like spin cycle classes,
yoga classes,
there's a number of different ways of
of getting involved to raise fu,
raise awareness for the organization.
You know, I know there's
been so many studies,
even articles about how to prevt
a disease like this from happen.
Do you talk about that,
talk about those early warning signs,
but also how to make sure
that maybe if you have those,
to protect yourself against the.
Yeah, we have a very, you know,
I would say comprehensive curriculum,
whether it's warning size,
ways of preventing what if I
am diagnosed, what do I do?
Looking at also at early,
you know, detection,
which is an important componento
not only the therapy but also t.
Identifying, you know, hey,
do I have Alzheimer's,
do I have some of the early
morning stages because you know
typically what we're seeing in
the research is 20 years prior o
actually having those symptoms.
You can actually be developing t
and tell us what are some of the
things that we can do to prevent that
health, certainly nutrition,
those are the big ones and being active,
those are sort of some of the
three things that we talked abot
on one of the community educato,
but we we talked about nutrition, health.
You know, being active and you ,
even things like, you know,
crossword puzzles and you got t,
you got to challenge your
brain a little bit, keeping
that brain active, that's sometg
that I've really read about is g
a Sudoku puzzle or those crossws
or having conversations every se
morning waking your brain up.
There seems to be so much scientific,
you know, research behind this disease,
hopefully, you know,
at some point finding a cure bee
it really does impact so many people.
Tell us again, how many people n
San Diego are are dealing with ?
Disease and how many people
are providing care for that?
Yeah, so 60,000 approximately in the San
Diego region are impacted or have the
disease and nearly 3X of that number,
you know, 3-3 fold difference in
terms of the caregivers, family,
loved ones, so about 160,000 so.
It's a pretty significant numbef
people who are impacted directl.
Absolutely. Well, thank you so .
When speaking with us about the
Alzheimer's Association here
in San Diego, Imperial County,
June is Alzheimer's Awareness M.
But you know what, Of course,
this is something that
impacts us all year long.
Again, before we go,
tell us where we can find a
little bit more information,
alz.org or call up the 800, numr
1-800-272-3900. All right. Thank you so much.
Thank you. Appreciate you. All right.