MRiearte Increasing Awareness Can Lead To A Cure (NAPS)—Alzheimer’s disease will affect one in eight baby boomersas they age. Odds are you will know one of them—and you maybe able to help them. The greatest risk factor for Alzheimer’s disease is increasing age, and the disease is expected to become more prevalent. The number of people who have the disease will double in the next 20 years and double again in the following 20 years if a cure is not found. Currently, a person in the U.S. develops Alzheimer’s disease every 70 seconds. This will increase to every 33 seconds by the middle of this century. The best thing you can do to help those affected by the disease is to learn all you can aboutit. Increased awareness will help pave the way for the research needed to find a cure. Scientists are making progress in finding effective treatments— but research is expensive and takes time. Increased understanding about Alzheimer’s will reduce stigma, improve care and help strengthen the public fight against the disease. You can help by spreading the word to family, friends and colleagues—even your elected representatives. Onehelpful new tool is a series of five, short (less than three min- utes each), easy-to-understand “pocket” films that have been created to help increase the understanding of Alzheimer’s disease. The series of films—“A Quick Look at Alzheimer’s”—is designed to play on iPods, cell phones, PDAs, laptops and DVDs. You can help with Alzheimer’s awareness by spreading the word to family, friends and colleagues— even your elected representatives. Originally developed in En- glish, the pocket films are now available in 10 other languages: Arabic, Farsi, French, German, Hindi, Japanese, Mandarin Chi- nese, Portuguese, Russian and Spanish. The films, found at www.aboutalz.org, are free for noncommercial use. The Alliance for Aging Research is hoping individuals and organizations will use the films to help further awareness of the disease. The films were written and directed by David Shenk, author of “The Forgetting,” animated by Jossie Malis and narrated by David Hyde Pierce. They were developed in partnership with the Alliance for Aging Research with a grant from MetLife Foundation. For more information, go to www.aboutalz.org.
