L‘Alzheimer’s turns off memories, but research can turn them back on. Small concrete gestures are enough for Mother’s Day. Like the one designed to support Alzheimer’s research. In all Coop Italia stores, from April 26th to May 8th it is possible buy a mini calla to contribute to Alzheimer’s disease research. For each plant sold, in fact, € 1 will be donated toItalian Alzheimer’s Research Association (Airalzh), to support all the efforts in the scientific field carried out by the Association and its researchers.
Alzheimer, 600,000 in Italy alone
In Italy there are 1.4 million people affected by dementia, of which over 600,000 with Alzheimer’s disease. And the situation is not improving, despite advances in science and research. Due to the aging of the population it is expected that within 30 years, 1 in 85 people worldwide will be affected. The goal of the Airalzh initiatives is to have “a tomorrow without Alzheimer’s”.
Mother’s Day, an occasion for fundraising
But to achieve the goal, theItalian Association for Alzheimer’s Research is committed daily to raising funds intended exclusively for research. Airalzh, in Italy, is the only Association that promotes medical-scientific research on Alzheimer’s disease and other forms of dementia. Each year indexes the AGYR call (Airalzh Grants for Young Researchers) allocating 300 thousand euros to young researchers to finance research projects on early diagnosis and on prevention and lifestyles. With the “Forget about You” initiative, Coop Italia renews its commitment to support Alzheimer’s research with Airalzh and to promote Italian horticulture. A mini calla to contribute to Alzheimer’s disease research and give hope to over 3 million patients, family members and caregivers.
Dementia and Alzheimer’s: what are the differences?
Dementia is the term used to describe various brain diseases that involve the progressive alteration of some functions (memory, thought, reasoning, language, orientation, personality and behavior) of such severity as to interfere with the daily acts of life.
There Alzheimer’s disease is the most common cause of dementia (represents 50-60% of all cases).
The World Health Organization notes that in the world there are 55 million people with a form of dementia, destined to become 139 million by 2050. Every 3 seconds a person becomes ill with dementia. In Italy it is estimated that dementia affects 1,241,000 people.
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Alzheimer’s: Why Is Diagnosis So Difficult?
To understand the reasons for these numbers, ADI has launched a online questionnaire to which they joined over 3,500 people with dementia, caregivers and medical staff. The answers were collected from McGill University of Montreal who analyzed i main obstacles which prevent people with dementia from receiving one correct diagnosis.
- In the first place there is the difficulty in accessing qualified doctors (47%)followed by the fear of diagnosis and its consequences (46%) and costs (34%).
- As far as healthcare professionals are concerned, the main obstacle in making a correct diagnosis is the difficulty in accessing diagnostic tests specialized (38%) followed by a lack of specific training and knowledge (37%).
- Finally, the Report notes that stigma still appears to be a major problem: 1 in 3 doctors think that the diagnosis is useless because there is no cure for dementia.
Airalzh Onlus is the only association that promotes medical-scientific research on Alzheimer’s disease and other forms of dementia at national level. The main objectives of Airalzh are to contribute to the identification of risk factors, to the improvement of techniques for early diagnosis and the identification of new targets for therapeutic interventions, with the aim of raising the levels of care, improving the quality of life of patients and raise awareness of the disease.
COOP
Silvia Mastagni Coop press office manager
Tel. 06441811 – 3357884168 – [email protected] www.e-coop.it
Airalzh Italian Association for Alzheimer’s Research Onlus www.airalzh.it facebook: Airalzh
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