For the past several years my family has been dealing with my maternal grandmother’s illness — Alzheimer’s disease. It’s taken a toll on the whole family, but especially my mother, who is her primary caregiver. Not surprising is a new report from the Alzheimer’s Association showing women are hit the hardest.

“Women are the epicenter of Alzheimer’s disease, representing majority of both people with the disease and Alzheimer’s caregivers,” said Angela Geiger, chief strategy officer of the Alzheimer’s Association.

 
3.2 million women in the U.S. are living with Alzheimer’s disease. Women in their 60s are twice as likely to develop the disease over the rest of their lives as they are breast cancer. Average women outlive men and therefore their likelihood of getting the disease is greater.

Of the more than 15 million Americans caring for a loved one with Alzheimer’s or dementia, there are 2.5 times as many women than men providing intensive 24-hour care. Women who care for loved ones with Alzheimer’s have a higher emotional burden and are in their caregiving roles longer than the typical caregiver. Seventeen percent of women, compared to 2 percent of men, expressed feelings of isolation linked to depression.

 
These caregivers also suffer a burden at their jobs. 20 percent of women versus 3 percent of men went from working full-time to working part-time. And women were twice as likely as men to give up work entirely.

 
Alzheimer’s disease is the sixth leading cause of death in the United States, yet it is still widely misunderstood and underreported. There is a mistaken belief that Alzheimer’s must run in one’s family for them to be at risk. Twenty-five percent of both men and women, and 33 percent of Latinos, agreed with that incorrect statement, according to the Alzheimer’s Association.

 
My family has been rocked by this disease, but we have grown much stronger. I am so thankful for how much closer I have become to my grandmother and mother on this journey. I am so proud of my mother and her work. Both of these women have given me a desire to become even more of an advocate for Alzheimer’s disease and their caregivers. For more information on the disease, go to http://www.alz.org/.

 
Please think about joining the Alzheimer’s Association in their launch of a national initiative this spring highlighting the power of women in the fight against this disease. To join the movement, visit http://www.alz.org/mybrain.

 
My grandmother is now in a nursing home. We are blessed that she is close, receiving wonderful care. I wrote the below piece several years ago before I knew she had Alzheimer’s, but I knew something was changing. I would like to share it with you. Treasure every moment, you don’t know how long it will last.

 

Rara Ave

Abuela. Rare bird. Grandma. Daisy. She rocks in her chair in the marquesina in Guayama, Puerto Rico. She says she has visions in glasses of water and winter wonderland globes, and speaks tongues.  She says God talks to her.  She tells me to be happy. Laugh! God likes it when I laugh. God likes it when I smile. He is smiling down on me right now.

She cries.  She says she doesn’t want to lose her husband.   They have been married for 64 years.  She remembers becoming an orphan. She says she looked like Shirley Temple when she was a girl. She remembers her mother dying of tuberculosis and her father from a fall. Her brother being institutionalized.  Moving from home to home.  No house.  She and her husband have had 13 houses, four children, 12 grandchildren, eight great grandchildren and one more is on the way.  He gave her everything. He was more than a husband. He became a father.

She laughs.  She sings “ If Jesus in the family, Happy Happy Home. Happy Happy Home. Happy Happy Home.”

She laughs.  I love God she says in her room stuffed with boxes, Christmas ornaments, plastic bags with shades of black and gray stockings, dresses the colors of papaya, mangoes, and Macintosh apples.  Eighty-three years of memories.   A bed that only has a corner free for her to sleep. In that cluttered room in an over-stuffed house in a cold New York suburb, she is never alone.

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