Fighting 'the longest loss' Walk to End Alzheimer's set for Saturday

MOSES LAKE — The walk in Moses Lake to highlight the fight against Alzheimer’s Disease is scheduled for Saturday. The 2017 Walk to End Alzheimer’s starts at 10 a.m. at Yonezawa Park, 300 Yonezawa Blvd.

“This raises money, and this raises awareness,” said organizer Laurie Ahmann.

Late registration opens at 8:30 a.m., with the opening ceremony at 9:45 a.m. The course is 3 miles – 1.5 miles out, 1.5 miles back – along Yonezawa Boulevard, Ahmann said.

Money raised through the walk stays in the community to help Alzheimer’s victims and their families. But Ahmann said she thinks it’s just as important to raise awareness of the disease, both for the victims and the people who take care of them.

Ahmann quoted the title of a documentary that she said summed it up. “This is the longest loss. It takes years.”

Alzheimer’s is one form of dementia; researchers have identified about 100 different types, she said. About 56 percent of patients with dementia have Alzheimer’s.

The Alzheimer’s Association estimates that in 2017, about 110,000 people in Washington have Alzheimer’s Disease. But along with each victim there are family and friends that have to adjust their lives to new, and often cruel, realities.

Ahmann works at the Summer Wood Alzheimer’s Special Care Center, and remembered getting a call from a woman frightened of a strange man in her house. “She needed to be reintroduced to her husband” and caregiver, Ahmann said. Another Alzheimer’s sufferer mistook her son for her late husband, and couldn’t understand why he had another family.

Alzheimer’s victims can forget basic functions of living, she said. Many victims suffer from paranoia. “The days and the nights get mixed up.”

“More and more people are coming to us daily, trying to figure out this disease.” Many of those looking for information are older, she said, spouses or family members of patients who must assume a new role.

For that reason, she said, raising awareness, and connecting families with each other, are among the most important parts of the walk for her. “These people all come out to support one another.”

And a walk on a sunny fall day is fun in itself, she said. “We try to keep it simple. You come, you walk, you have a great time.”

Cheryl Schweizer can be reached via email at education@columbiabasinherald.com.