My mom, Nancy B. Whitehead, passed away due to Alzheimer’s disease on Friday, April 17, 2020 at the age of 82.  Her last few years were difficult as this horrible disease slowly robbed her of her memories of friends, then family, and finally even how to eat.   Our family prays that sometime in the future, research will find a cure so that other families do not have to suffer watching their loved ones slowly decline.  

Our family started fund raising to help find a cure for Alzheimer’s disease several years ago.  We cannot thank our friends enough for the generous support you have provided.  Over the years you have helped our family raise over $10,000 for Alzheimer’s.  I appreciate that many of you also shared your own stories of your parents or grandparents who also lost their memories and then their lives to this disease.  This e-mail is about raising Alzheimer’s awareness as well as fund-raising for a cure.  Thus, if you cannot contribute this year, please consider either spending some time on the links on this Alzheimer’s site (or the national site) to further your awareness.   If you were one of my many friends who have unfortunately known a family member with this disease, you might consider sharing your story with close friends so they would better understand this horrible disease.

This year we are walking in an Alzheimer’s fundraiser that supports  two local organizations: Memory Matters Glynn County and the Goizueta Alzheimer’s Disease Research Center at Emory University in Atlanta.  The Goizueta Research group is one of only 27 Alzheimer’s research groups that is supported by the National Institute of Health.   As well as their own promising research into the effect of sleep problems in triggering Alzheimer’s, the role of vitamins, and the potential of various novel surgery techniques, the Goizueta group also keeps a large national tissue bank that they allow other Alzheimer’s research facilities to use. Memory Matters Glynn County provides early memory screening tests, consultation, education and support groups.  As my Mom was in a long-term care facility for Alzheimer’s patients in Glynn county, we met many other families trying to cope with this disease’s progress with a loved one.  Memory Matters support was helpful to many of these families.