Annual Alzheimer’s Memory Walk really needs our participation

The annual Alzheimer's Memory Walk is drawing near and I cannot ignore the opportunity to call it to your attention and encourage any of you willing and able to take part in a walk wherever you live.

If you aren't familiar with this, it's the nation's largest effort to call attention to this awful disease as well as raise funding to support research and help with care for those families suffering through Alzheimer's.

It is, indeed, a family disease. There is research to suggest that at least part of the awful thing is genetic, but beyond that every family struck by the disease suffers -- not just the person or people who are afflicted with it. In my case, my father-in-law suffered advanced Alzheimer's in the closing months of his life and my wife was devastated by the experience. Some years later, her mother went through some very difficult battles with dementia in the last year or so of life, though it was never specifically diagnosed as Alzheimer's. Quite frankly, to this day I go through brief bouts of worry any time she or I (we are both in our 60s) experience those "senior moments" of forgetfulness we all kid about.

I encourage you to go to the Alzheimer's Association website I have linked to above and get the details about a walk in your area, or even find information about starting a walk. According to the information at the Association's site, Alzheimer's Walks typically are 2-3 miles long and are done on a weekend morning in the fall. There are more than 600 communities nationwide holding such wonderful fundraisers, and the site even has a ZIP Code form you can use to quickly locate a walk near you.

Take the time to find out about this and "do the right thing," whatever that may be for you and your particular situation. What a wonderful blessing it would be for millions if the disease could be cured. And what a wonderful blessing YOU may be to someone by doing your part in this, no matter how big or how small.