Five and a half years ago, doctors diagnosed Meagan Harrison’s grandmother with life-altering Alzheimer’s disease.
The sociology senior went through stages of confusion and anger before she was able to accept that her grandmother would no longer be the woman she once knew.
Harrison said witnessing her grandmother’s struggle with the disease was an emotional time for her.
“You actually really learn how to give back to the person who had given to you in the past,” she said.
More than 100,000 people in Baton Rouge can relate to knowing someone diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease.
Alzheimer’s Services of the Capital Area, a local nonprofit organization, will host the 12th annual Walk/Run To Remember at a new location Saturday.
The event at the University’s Old Front Nine will feature a 5K Race, 5K Walk, activities for children, live music and booths for local businesses.
The race will start at 9 a.m., at the golf course area on the corner of Nicholson Drive and Nicholson Drive Extension. The race’s celebrity starter is the University’s women’s basketball coach Pokey Chatman, who donated $10,000 to Alzheimer’s Services in 2004.
The walk will start at 9:05 a.m., and is expected to end at 11:30 a.m.
“I think we all know someone, or we have a friend who has a family member with Alzheimer’s, and you can see the effects it has on their caregivers,” Chatman said. “I just think it’s something I want to lend my hand to.”
Leigh Loe, Alzheimer’s Services of the Capital Area office management director, said anyone who wants to participate in the race can register at www.brhope.org or at the event beginning at 8 a.m. The entry fee for the race is $20.
Loe, who expects about 5,000 people to attend the event, said the money will support the organization’s programs and services including its resource library, help line and further Alzheimer’s disease research.
“Alzheimer’s doesn’t just affect the person with the disease,” she said. “It affects the family. It has a huge impact on the community, and it’s a hard disease to deal with. It’s life-altering.”
The event’s honorary chair is Wilfred Barry, whose mother was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease in 2000. Barry contacted Alzheimer’s Services when he realized that the disease was negatively affecting his mother’s motor functions and memory.
“The thing about Alzheimer’s is that it causes anxiety in most of the patients when they realize their lives are getting smaller,” he said. “Their world just shrinks dramatically more and more as the disease progresses.”
Barry said the organization is “very outreach-oriented” and provided his family with the information they needed to better deal with his mother’s disease.
Barry said he will be attending the event with two of his siblings and his mother.
Loe said Alzheimer’s Services, which began 20 years ago, gives a prize called the Traveling Shoe Award to the team with the most people participating in the walk and race each year. Star Hill Baptist Church’s team, which had 300 people, won the award last year.
Mae McGuffery, Harrison’s mother, led the church’s team in 2005. She said she got involved with Alzheimer’s Services after doctors diagnosed her mother with Alzheimer’s disease.
“What we’re trying to do is share our story when it comes to Alzheimer’s,” she said. “I do want to make people aware that it’s not something to be ashamed of.”
Harrison, the church’s young adult team leader this year, said people diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease “go through a stage of being a baby again.”
“Just knowing that you’re helping people out that can’t help themselves when there’s nobody else there to help him – it really gives you a warm feeling inside and sends blessing your way,” she said.
The church’s pastor, Raymond Jetson, said his grandmother and great-grandmother were diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease.
“There is very little in life that is more difficult than watching somebody you love dearly become someone else right before your eyes,” he said.
Jetson said he believes the church will meet its goal of creating a team of more than 400 people for the event.
Jetson said more than 20 families in his congregation either have a family member or a friend with Alzheimer’s disease.
“Alzheimer’s is robbing families of the very fiber of family, and the impact, on not only the person with Alzheimer’s but their caregivers, is profound,” he said.
—–Contact Amgelle Barbazon at [email protected]