Winston-Salem Journal - Using Head and Heart to Battle Alzheimer's

Op-Ed

By Thom Tillis

Finding a cure to Alzheimer's disease is a goal that is very near and dear to my heart. Along with my mother and two aunts, I was a caregiver to my grandmother who developed this terrible, debilitating disease. I am all too familiar with the painful reality of "the long goodbye," the process of seeing your loved one gradually lose their entire life's memory, and with it, their unique personality and ability to perform even the most basic independent functions.

For me, the silver lining during that difficult period was being fortunate enough to take a college course that taught me how to serve as a more effective caregiver for my grandmother. That education proved to be pivotal in making "the long goodbye" a less painful and frustrating experience for my family than what it would have been otherwise. The invaluable information and insight I was able to put into practice is something I wish all caregivers for family members with Alzheimer's and dementia could similarly benefit from.

Today, I have the honor of serving as a member of the Senate Special Committee on Aging, which has provided me with a unique platform to work on a bipartisan basis to help advance the goal of curing Alzheimer's and supporting and educating the nearly 15 million family caregivers in America.

Last year, I supported a budget agreement signed into law by President Obama that increased Alzheimer's research funding by $300 million, a 60 percent increase from the following year. This unprecedented investment will help us take a massive leap toward being able to prevent and effectively treat Alzheimer's disease by 2025, an ambitious yet realistic goal that was originally laid out several years ago in the National Plan To Address Alzheimer's Disease.

I am also working with my colleagues to advance the EUREKA Act, bipartisan legislation that will encourage more public-private collaboration to combat Alzheimer's. Partnerships between the federal government and private sector innovators have resulted in scientific breakthroughs with other diseases, and the EUREKA Act can help in the advancement of detection tools and the development of new tools and approaches to care for people with Alzheimer's.

Additionally, to help provide family caregivers with greater support and resources, I recently joined a bipartisan group of senators to urge Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) to evaluate the cost-saving opportunities associated with providing targeted Alzheimer's disease support services to caregivers, particularly when it comes to delaying or reducing their use of institutional long-term care and other health-care services.

Investing in a cure for Alzheimer's is a classic example of where the head and the heart meet. For those who doubt the federal government's role in funding research, consider the projection that if by 2025 we can effectively develop a treatment for Alzheimer's that delays the onset by just five years, then 5.7 million fewer Americans would develop Alzheimer's by 2050, saving our nation nearly $400 billion in the process.

However, in the end, it's not about the number of dollars at stake. It's about the number of grandparents, mothers, fathers, and spouses whose quality of life we can improve and extend by relentlessly pursuing the treatment and ultimate cure for Alzheimer's disease. That's a cause we can all agree is worth fighting for.

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