I saw a friend at a cocktail party recently that I hadn't seen in months.  The first thing out of his mouth was, "I had a terrible summer.  I went to see my son in Dallas and got lost in Jackson, MS.  I drove 1000 miles out of the way.  I finally just parked on the side of the road until a policeman stopped – the nicest man – he escorted me out of town, put me on the highway and wrote down the instructions for what I should do from then on.  I have dementia, the first stage of Alzheimer's."

We talked about the medication that he was on, how it had really helped but had awful side effects, about how his family had helped him get home by staying in touch by cell phone, telling him where to turn next. When we left I told him that we were going to have folks over when it got warmer.  He looked me in the eye and said, "That might be too late."  And then the party broke up and my friend and his partner left.

I thought at the time that he was telling me good-bye.  It was a brave thing to do by a guy with a lot of class. 

Alzheimer’s disease, which was always a disease that hit people older than I, has suddenly become the menace of my contemporaries.  Our painter, who was younger by 10 years, died recently from it.  It’s not something I worry about.  It’s not in my family – not a surefire reassurance – but there is no prevention, so there is nothing left but to rock along until you’re off your rocker.

Unlike other slow killers that gradually reduce you to being a cripple before turning out your lights, dementia robs you of the things that define you; your mind, your personality, your wit, your quirks, your autonomy.

Your love, your valentine, often becomes your caretaker, slowly watching you drift away leaving only a shell behind.

One of the problems with this global village that we now live in is that families have become very dilute.  Many people end up with their immediate family scattered, having followed the trail of ever decreasing job opportunities to the ends of the country and sometimes the earth.  Added to that fact is the trend toward smaller families often leaving no support, emotional or material, for the wife or husband -or partner- of an Alzheimer’s disease patient.

Day care for adults is the thing that is eventually needed and it is expensive often depleting a couple’s life savings.  If it can be afforded, well-meaning strangers end up being the support for the victims.  And they are; they are both victims.

There are a lot of things that are needed in this country, this U.S.A., our country that we have imagined to be the refuge for “…your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to be free”, but the greatest needs are not another government program, another service to the community; what is needed is a complete shift in focus.

I hate the phrase because I heard it so often in the board rooms of the hospitals I worked in, but it is apt.  We need a paradigm shift.  We need to return our focus to creating jobs at home, jobs that will let families stay in their communities where they can find support from their family, their neighbors and their friends, and return the same.