Posted 8/2/24
And when they had eaten their fill, he told his disciples, “Gather up the leftover fragments, that nothing may be lost.” -John 6:12
How are you feeling about inflation these days? Yup…I dig it too. Oh, and I readily love me some shrinkflation too. That bag of Baked Lays is inflated like a pufferfish popping Alka Seltzers like M&Ms, but there are only 12 chips in there…so think of the calories it saves! Don’t forget Squeezeflation too. That one raises the wages of the lowest earners at the expense of the wages of anyone else, and passes some bonus cost onto the consumer. Lots of flationers out there these days contributing to the angst, and I love’m all. 😉 (Note: remember, when the price of something goes up a bunch one year and only half of that bunch the next year, it isn’t “going down” by half, it is actually still going up compared with the year before it started.)
Why do I bring this up in a dementia blog? Is a big, fat political rant coming? Is my blame sword sharp? Am I selling campaign stuff to fund a cure? (Wait…tempted. Hmmm. 😉 ) NOPE. I could not possible care less about politics right now. I have views, I vote, and I care, but that isn’t in view here. This is my point instead:
10 Things the Current Economy Tells Us About Dementia
- Saving where we can helps– This is the most applicable thing here. It will require no shoehorning. We have to save money on stuff we don’t have to have so we have more for what we do have to have if we are to make it when the economy burps. In caregiving, we have to save our strength in the blue skies so that we are more ready for the storms. This, friends, is MISSION CRITICAL. We need respite. We need downtime. We may have to sacrifice intense fun for some rest. Don’t be a Lone Ranger…get help.
- Inflation stinks– Not only does it cost money tangibly, it also costs in the net present value of the free healthcare that unpaid family members provide. According to the Alzheimer’s Association’s Facts and Figures publication, “In 2023, caregivers of people with Alzheimer’s or other dementias provided an estimated 18.4 billion hours of informal — that is, unpaid — assistance, a contribution valued at $346.6 billion.” For all of the above reasons, this is huge for the economy and should be celebrated…unless you want to add more wait time at the doctor’s office and more national debt. 🙂 Unpaid caregivers are heroes and deserve to be treated as such in a similar way as nurses, first responders and the like. The could be making a lot of money but instead save us all money.
- Blame is just weakness in the form of ugliness– Again, I care not who caused this economy. I just want it fixed. In dementia, people are weary. They are increasingly angry that we don’t have anything akin to a cure and they blame science/a few bad apples. Yes, there was some frustrating fudging of the numbers on Beta Amyloid (BA) and its relationship with the disease, for financial gain and/or prestige. However, we mustn’t throw the BA baby out with the bathwater. BA is present in the vast majority of cases of Alzheimer’s and a few more types of dementia. When you get rid of it, it seems like it helps cognition, even if just some. The new class of drugs is worth the risk if we can do all we can to keep it safe, and it seems like that is more and more possible. Remember too…the disease without these meds is the epitome of unsafe. It will take a cocktail of things to fight the bevy of “causes” of dementia.
- Causes are many– There are lots of things that are obviously bad for the economy. Debt service that is soon to be the second highest expenditure really hurts. Population trends (too many seniors per working stiff) strain things. Infighting and partisanship hurts too. There are lots of causes, plenty to go around to every single politician in the last 75 years, and we are nearing a tipping point that will require hard choices. In dementia, I have little doubt the following laundry list are somewhat “causes” of this umbrella of conditions, in some way or another: unregulated high blood pressure, untreated bad blood sugar, unmitigated stress (Doc: “stop stressing or you will get dementia!!!! Now here is your bill for $300 for the visit”), floppin’ like a fish out of water sleep, inflammation, the gut biome being messed up because or not because of our terrible diets, head trauma, genetics (especially for some with specific mutations), drinking too much, drug use, legal drug interactions, vitamin deficiencies or overdoses, heart issues, vein issues, getting older (the biggest risk factor, but not certain), and several/many more causes. This makes for a brain environment that, like Lisa Genova says, crosses a dementia “tipping point” and spins out of control.
- No easy fix– You don’t easily get to high inflation and $30+ trillion in debt. Lots of causes and lots fog hard decisions will be required to fix it. Dementia is that way too. I am a fixer and it rubs me the wrong way to NOT be able to fix it. I tried hard for my mom’s 14 year battle and I will continue trying hard…but it will take more than me plus the other millions trying. We need the same effort plus some we have put into other diseases. Instead some docs won’t even diagnose it!?! Sigh… Come on folks. Knowing the enemy helps fight the enemy.
- Telling the story will be required. Here is the story of what a trillion dollars looks like: https://youtu.be/WBxWdD9YKdY?si=H7oscIf_yn3c9KXj . Add 30+ more of these. The video does a good job explaining just home much we are talking, but it boils it down to one. Tell your dementia story. Feel free to use the Facts and Figures above or in this infographic. However, telling YOUR story makes a bigger difference, especially when talking to a legislator. Big numbers make us glaze over, but a story has the power to tell a trillion times more. Need proof? I can tell you who has good chicken and that they have nice people or I can tell you more through their story: Watch this.
- Helping helps– Don’t cheat the government. Pay your taxes by the letter of the code and no more. This costs have been outlandish, and we all get to pay them back. Just being good citizens will help. Help those with dementia. Please. They need relief. Nothing extravagant, but can you spend an hour visiting with them and bringing an hour of normalcy? Can you cover an afternoon? Can you bring by food? Helping helps.
- We didn’t get here overnight– We have been a mess for a long time economically speaking. Even in the good years we have failed to pay back debt (needless to say saved back anything. We have been broke for 2 generations, yet we keep ramping up the brokeness. I am asked often “How have there suddenly been so many folks with dementia???” …as if they haven’t been around until their first experience with this menace. I understand the feeling that it seems like there are more with the disease. It feels that way at least largely because the biggest risk factor for the disease is age…and we are just flat old. Our demographic scale if teeters when it needs to totter! We have a lot of Baby Boomers and the Gen X folk haven’t had the 4-8 kids each required to keep the plates spinning.
- It won’t be fixed overnight either, but heading in the right way helps– We can’t fix the economy fast, regardless who wins what election. The problem is just too big. However, just like in my June shark jumps, you don’t focus on the big number, you focus on heading in the right direction. Change and go the right way. 🙂 That is where we are in dementia research. We are heading in the right way. We are studying all of the causes and trying to build off what is succeeding. If we can push back the disease a little more and a little more each step, pretty soon we can delay the disease so long that there will be other concerns. We all want a magic pill to fix the disease and an meteor made of diamonds to fall from the sky and fix the economy…and that would be nifty. However, if we stick with incremental joy, we will get there someday.
- The fix might just be under our nose where it has been all along– Prayer may be the best and only answer to these big problems. We can and should keep trying to fix things, but cannot forget the foundation to what made us the most amazing place before we bungled it all up…our prayerful if broken early heritage. Can God fix the economy? Can He wipe out dementia in a poof? Yup and yup. For centuries the only doubt that the Earth was created in six 24 hour days was by people who thought He wouldn’t take that long. Today the very mention makes me look goofy to many of you. Regardless, I believe what I believe. Give prayer some thought. I am onto something here… 😉 Prayer certainly has helped me navigate these shark-filled waters for the last 20 years for sure… 🙂
#EndALZ
My Longest Day season has ended and I am full swing into Walk to End Alzheimer’s mode. 🙂 I have looked into attending several this year beyond my local one which can be found here:
https://act.alz.org/site/TR?fr_id=17740&pg=personal&px=14575499
My plan is to spend my Saturdays in September at Walks as best I can. 🙂 Maybe I will see you at yours?
Note: I start facilitating a support group in Ozark later this month. I am working on a couple at churches in Springfield and the region as well. If you live out of the area and are interested, I also do one via Zoom typically on the 4th Tuesday evening of the month before our in-person one starts in Springfield. Email or call me for details. 🙂 Mark.applegate@senioragemo.org or 417-955-2513
Note…the last one: Political ads are terrible. There, I said it. This is as non-partisan as possible. 🙂 Please don’t share party affiliation, political rants, or the like here. There is enough blame to go around that I don’t trust any party for the answers I seek. I am certain of this: They both agree completely with me that Alzheimer’s and related dementias need to go away, and that is good enough for me. 🙂
