Annual Alzheimer's walk draws more than 100 walkers
Leslie Woodfill, one of the organizers of the Walk to End Alzheimer's, sets out pinwheel flowers that commemorate Alzheimer's patients, their families and caregivers. The in-person walk was canceled, so the pinwheels normally carried by walkers were set up in Civic Park.
Cheryl Schweizer/Columbia Basin Herald
Pinwheel flowers commemorating Alzheimer's patients, their caregivers and families filled a corner of Civic Park Sunday.
By CHERYL SCHWEIZER
Staff Writer
MOSES LAKE — Walkers took to their neighborhoods and favorite trails in Moses Lake on Sunday to raise money to help fight Alzheimer’s, and other forms of dementia, and to raise awareness of the disease.
The annual Walk to End Alzheimer’s had been postponed for two weeks due to poor air quality caused by smoke from West Coast wildfires.
As of Sunday morning, organizer Leslie Woodfill said the teams from Moses Lake and the surrounding area had raised $27,821. Nineteen teams had registered, with 131 walkers.
Although the local walk is in September, donations are accepted through the end of the year. The 2020 goal is $50,000.
The 2020 walk was going to be different even before the postponement, since the COVID-19 outbreak had forced some changes. The traditional in-person event was canceled; participants were encouraged to walk, but to stick to small groups and walk in their neighborhoods.
There’s always an opening ceremony, but for 2020 it was filmed and broadcast on the walk’s webpage. Dale Roth was the producer.
Woodfill said the money raised goes to local support groups for Alzheimer’s patients and caregivers, as well as an education program about the disease. For 2020, the education program has been moved online.
The money also is used for research, and advocacy to support research and for Alzheimer’s patients, their caregivers and families.
Woodfill has personal experience with the disease. Her mother was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s with Lewy bodies which, among other things, causes hallucinations. Sometimes those led to serious consequences. Her father was her mother’s caregiver and had to call for help occasionally when his wife mistook him for an intruder and tried to attack him.
But some of the hallucinations left good memories, Woodfill said. Her mother sometimes saw imaginary children outside and would insist on fixing them a meal. Woodfill and her father would conspire to make her mother think the kids had eaten the meal and thanked her.
There are advances being made in treatment, she said. Researchers are working on blood tests that would help with early detection. Other research has shown that changes in diet and exercise can help delay the onset of Alzheimer’s symptoms.
People can donate on the local walk’s webpage, https://act.alz.org, she said.
