John Oxford
MOULTRIE — Moultrie held its first Memory Walk Saturday, and donations from it were already setting new marks in Georgia.
Lona Ann Davis, operations director at Park Regency Assisted Living Center, said the event’s goal was to raise $7,000 to help Alzheimer’s disease victims and to raise awareness of the disease in Moultrie and Colquitt County. By Saturday morning, the event had already raised about $12,000, which is one of the best money-over-goal percentages ever in a group’s first year.
Organizer Lydia Tompkins said 125 people participated this year in 10 different teams.
According to the Alzheimer’s Association Web site, www.alz.org, Alzheimer’s disease is a brain disorder that “destroys brain cells, causing problems with memory, thinking and behavior severe enough to affect work, lifelong hobbies or social life.” It is the seventh leading cause of death in the U.S., with more than 5 million people diagnosed, and there is currently no cure for the fatal disease.
Alzheimer’s is a growing disease throughout the country, and Tompkins said Park Regency is one of several assisted living centers here working to help those with the disease. Moultrie could have taken their walkers to Albany to be a part of the Memory Walk there, she said, but she wanted to hold it here and hopes it will become an annual event.
Prior to the walk around the Moultrie Technical College Veterans Parkway campus, Joan White, the ninth grade counselor at Colquitt County High School, shared her story about Alzheimer’s disease. Her husband, Rex, was diagnosed in 1994 and is currently at Park Regency going through the later stages of the disease.
White said Rex has lived an interesting life so far, beginning as a Boy Scout to become a lieutenant colonel in the U.S. Air Force and serving two tours in Vietnam. The two met while he was working at Caesar’s Palace in Las Vegas, and she said she has grown closer to him through everything.
“We still have a great bond,” White said. “I think his happiest moments are when we are together.”
The Memory Walk is a great way for Moultrie to recognize many families have been affected by Alzheimer’s, White said. It is also a great way the community can give back and help to invest in research to find treatments and a cure for the disease, she said.
Dan Phillips, development director for the Georgia Alzheimer’s Association in Albany, said 161,000 people in Georgia have been diagnosed with the disease. That number is expected to triple by the year 2050 as “Baby Boomers” reach the ages of susceptibility.
Age is a big risk factor for Alzheimer’s, as Phillips said one in every seven people over 65 years of age will be diagnosed. That number jumps to one in every two people over 85 years of age.
Technology, however, has helped to allow people to be diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease as early as 40 years of age, Phillips said.
Tompkins said anyone who would like to make a donation for the Memory Walk or for Alzheimer’s research can contact Park Regency at 890-3342. Please ask for help with the Memory Walk when calling the facility.
