Alzheimer’s Disease – Walk A Mile In Someone Else’s Shoes

The rate of death from Alzheimer’s Disease and dementia and other dementias has experienced significant growth.

The World Health Organization reported;

"In 2019, Alzheimer’s disease and other forms of dementia ranked as the 7th leading cause of death. Women are disproportionately affected. Globally, 65% of deaths from Alzheimer’s and other forms of dementia are women."

What is also very concerning is that currently there is no cure for the disease and the most recent drug advancement is facing mixed reviews of it's capabilities.

And without some type of cure, this situation is going to get worse. Harvard Health shared,

“By age 85, half of you reading this article today will have developed Alzheimer’s disease, with or without a family history.”

With an aging population and no exact cure or treatment in sight, you can only expect that the number of deaths resulting from dementia and Alzheimer’s disease will only keep climbing up this death list.

So how do we increase research funds to support more advancements?

There’s an old saying "walk a mile in someone else’s shoes". The idea is that by putting yourself in someone else’s shoes, you then increase your own knowledge and understanding of what someone else’s challenges are and may then be more empathetic towards them.

In the following video from CBS they took this approach for a family struggling with a parent with Alzheimer’s disease. They had both a family member and journalist participate in a simulation to help them understand and appreciate what it was like to suffer with Alzheimer’s disease. After only 12 minutes of the simulation, both ended up struggling with major difficulties and left with a higher empathy for what someone with Alzheimer’s disease had to go through.

Maybe by better understanding how devastating this disease is and knowing there is a new case every 3.2 seconds we might be moved to action and demand support for further research to find a cure. Here’s the video: