Alzheimer’s disease runs in Bernetta Olin’s family, with her great grandmother, grandmother, and aunts being diagnosed with Alzheimer’s. Most recently, Bernetta has experienced Alzheimer’s through the diagnosis of her mother, Bertha, who passed away from the disease in 2007.
Despite early signs, Bernetta realized something was seriously wrong after she moved in with her mother while her own house was under construction. Her mother would “get up in the morning, look up at us, and say ‘When did you get here?’”. Worried about her mother’s safety after she moved into her own house, Bernetta placed her mother into a nursing home.
“The progression of Mom’s Alzheimer’s was very slow, but in the last months she did not know who we were,” says Olin.. “Most of the time she thought my sister and I were her sisters. That is heartbreaking to have your own mother not know who you are. The only consolation is that she knew we were someone who loved and cared for her.”
Alzheimer’s is not a rare condition: there are over 5.7 million in the United States and over 180,000 in Michigan alone who suffer from the disease. Making matters worse, these numbers are only expected to rise in the future.
Unlike other devastating diseases, Alzheimer’s disease has no survivors and no effective treatments in existence. While other diseases report falling mortality rates, Alzheimer’s disease now takes more lives each year than breast cancer and prostate cancer combined.
Because of the impact the disease has had on her and her family, Bernetta has become passionate in fighting Alzheimer’s, and has become very involved with advocacy through the Alzheimer’s Association. In addition to attending forums and connecting her friends with helpful resources, Bernetta frequently visits state policy makers, pushing them to support legislation that will help families facing the disease. “We have to keep after our senators and representatives, both state and federal, and keep them aware. They can help us with research funding.”
Bernetta is taking her passion to the next level next week by joining over 1,000 other advocates at the Alzheimer’s Advocacy Forum in Washington D.C., where she will directly meet with lawmakers on Capitol Hill to ask for increases in Alzheimer’s disease research funding.
Bernetta prays “every day that a treatment and cure for this debilitating disease will come soon”, and although we have not yet reached that day, Bertha believes that “together we can win this fight” against Alzheimer’s.
Source: Press Release
