Alzheimer's plan will benefit all Nebraskans as they grow older

AARP Nebraska Executive Council Member Kathy Ward recently shared her personal story with the Legislature's Health and Human Services Committee in support of LB 405. Among AARP Nebraska's top priority bills for the 2015 legislative session, LB 405 calls for development of a state plan to address Alzheimer’s and the impact on families.

Nearly 20 years ago, I called the physician assistant who was treating my mother in Alliance to ask whether the medications Mom was taking might account for her sometimes odd behavior. After a long pause, the physician assistant said that she was convinced my mother was in the early stages of dementia. She described clinic visits with my father always in attendance and always “covering” for Mom. After a brief conversation, I hung up the phone, and my family began a long journey to deal with our new understanding.

As a public health professional, I was in a better position than many to locate resources to help—the Nebraska Alzheimer’s Association, the Area Agency on Aging, and the Nebraska Medical Center’s geriatric program. Still, I was unprepared for the emotional, physical, and financial issues that followed. My mother ended up in a nursing home, my family lost the ranch that my father had owned his entire adult life, and my parents were forced to apply for Medicaid.

LB 405 won’t solve all the problems that my family and others like ours have faced, but it’s an important step in addressing a burgeoning public health issue. Baby Boomers like myself have reached our senior years, much to our surprise, and our sheer numbers guarantee that Alzheimer’s and other dementias will continue to escalate. According to the Alzheimer’s Association, an estimated 33,000 Nebraskans are now living with Alzheimer’s. Just five years from now, that number will have increased to 35,000; and in ten years it will be 40,000.

Nebraska must consider the future needs of its population as the number of people reaching advanced ages increases. Alzheimer’s is an expensive disease. The nationwide cost of caring for those with Alzheimer’s and other dementias is estimated to total $214 billion in 2014, increasing to $1.2 trillion (in today’s dollars) by mid-century.

Work groups and plan development as provided in LB 405 are important, both to clearly define the problem and to seek systemic solutions.  It has been nearly 30 years since Nebraska underwent a planning process for Alzheimer’s.

Few, if any, private businesses succeed without development of a business plan. By the same token, public health issues require study and attention. A planning process such as LB 405’s created the Every Woman Matters Program over two decades ago, a process that resulted in the screening, diagnosis, and treatment of tens of thousands of Nebraska women and many millions of federal grant funds to benefit our state. LB 405 would set a process in motion that is similar to the one that created Every Woman Matters.

Alzheimer’s and other dementias are devastating diagnoses, but the attention of policymakers such as you can mitigate the damage to families. The Nebraska AARP believes that LB 405 will provide a plan to benefit all of us who hope to grow older.