The event was hosted by the Becker Area Senior Center (BASC) and light refreshments were served for the hour-long presentation.

 

Act on Alzheimers is a statewide, volunteer-driven collaboration preparing Minnesota for the personal, social and budgetary impacts of Alzheimer’s disease.  

 

A four-phase process is being developed that would bring people together to help communities such as Becker create a supportive environment for people with dementia and/or alzheimers. The AOA group would also seek out technical assistance from local area agencies on aging.  

 

Thursday’s meeting allowed interested people the chance to learn about this exciting statewide and extremely successful initiative to help make Becker a designated “Alzheimer Friendly City”.

 

Carol Brunn of the BASC greeted the attendees and introduced Mary Bauer and Kathy Gilbride of the Central Minnesota Council on Aging (CMCOA), who were tasked to present the materials. The first part of the meeting centered around identifying what AOA is, then it moved on to community discussion, talk about building an action team and an examination of what steps are needed to proceed.

 

Bauer said the goals of AOA is to identify and invest in promising approaches, increase detection and improve care, sustain caregivers, equip communities and raise awareness and reduce the stigma associated with the disease.

 

Bauer said 100,000 Minnesotans live with Alzheimers and the numbers continue to grow. Seventy percent of people with Alzheimers live in their own homes and need support from families and community members. She said older African-Americans and Hispanics are proportionately more likely than older whites to have Alzheimer’s disease and other dementias.

 

Nearly 250,000 Minnesotans care for family members with the disease and these caregivers provide 277 million hours of unpaid care, valued at $3.4 billion annually. Bauer said many individuals with Alzheimers live alone and are at greater risk for inadequate self-care, malnutrition, untreated medical conditions, falls, wandering and accidental deaths.

 

One of the missions at Thursday’s meeting was to  form a community action team. The team would consist of neighbors, friends, businesses, faith grous, organizations and every other area of the surrounding communities who are willing to take action and create a supportive environment for people and families who are dealing with this disease.

 

AOA has developed a community toolkit for the action team to focus on a four-phase process of bringing people together in their communities for the cause. The first part of the process is to convene key community leaders and members to form the action team.

 

Second, the community would assess current strengths and gaps within the community. Third, the group would analyze community needs and develop a plan to take action. And fourth, the group would act  to pursue priority goals that foster community readiness for dementia and Alzheimers.

 

Bauer and Gilbride concluded the meeting by asking the people in attendance if they would be interested in signing up to help form an action team. The team would be looking for a “chairperson”, someone who is willing to endorse and kick off the development of the program and report progress to AOA regularly for public dissemination.

 

During discussions, one attendee said one of the problems he’s seen is that there isn’t enough public transportation options for the elderly who don’t drive to get around the surrounding communities. Another said there wasn’t enough information on how to notice the signs of onsetting Alzheimers.

 

Bauer and Gilbride said Becker was an ideal candidate for becoming an “Alzheimer-Friendly City” because it already has many services to utilize to bring awareness and support for such a cause. They also asked the attendees to help get the word out and bring as many people as they can to the next follow-up meeting April 24 at 3:30 p.m. at the BCC.

 

Tami Kolbinger from Becker Twp. summed up the meeting by saying, “Now is the time to act, it’s on all of us to make something like this happen in our lifetime.”

 

For more information, contact Carol Brunn at the BASC  at 320-248-5976.