Health FYI: Helping families deal with dementia

CALGARY- For 10 years, Janet Arnold has been a supporter. The Calgary woman volunteers with the Alzheimer Society, counseling families through the devastation of dementia.

Arnold knows how these families feel, because she’s been there herself.

“My grandparents just lived a block away from my house, so being quite young we didn’t understand why Grandpa was behaving quite oddly,” she remembers.

Arnold was just a young girl when Alzheimer’s disease slowly took her grandparents away. Back then, she never imagined years later the cruel disease would return for more.

“My dad was a brilliant man, he was an engineer,” she says with a smile. In the 1980s, her father built a boat in the family’s backyard. Her parents spent their golden years on the water sailing all over the world, and seemed invincible until one day it became clear, they were not.

“My sister and I were out sailing in the boat my dad had built, and he was looking at the charts and telling my sister that someone had drawn all over his charts,” Arnold recalls. When doctors confirmed it was dementia, she turned to the Alzheimer Society for help.

“What we try to do is provide all levels of support and resources across the dementia continuum, from diagnosis all the way through to end of life,” explains Antha Hibbert, program manager with Alzheimer Society Calgary.

An estimated 13,000 Calgarians are currently living with dementia, but the disease’s true impact is thousands more once family members are taken into account. Demand for support services at the Alzheimer Society has risen dramatically.

“Last year, we had just under 2,000 families take advantage of our main support services,” says Jill Petrovic, communications manager with the Alzheimer’s Society. “Another 750 families attended support group meetings.”

“I got so much out of that I really wanted to give something back to the society,” says Arnold. She now lends strength to others, even as hers is tested once again.  Shortly after her father passed away, her mother got sick. Now in her family ‘s fourth dance with this disease, Arnold says she’s learned to value every small moment.

The Alzheimer Society is holding its major fundraiser this weekend.  The “Thanks for the Memories Thanksgiving Walk and Run” happens this Sunday at Eau Claire Market.