Some Things Come with Age

The Alzheimer's Association and the Ad Council are partnering to launch the Alzheimer's Awareness campaign, which aims to promote early detection of Alzheimer's and other dementias. They encourage family members to learn the early signs of Alzheimer's and have open conversations with their loved ones and healthcare providers. The campaign provides resources and tools to facilitate these discussions. The Ad Council will distribute the campaign through various platforms, including television, digital, print, and radio. The goal is to empower and educate people about Alzheimer's, with a focus on reaching the Hispanic community. The campaign emphasizes the importance of early detection and offers a list of 10 early signs and symptoms of Alzheimer's and dementia. The website 10signs.org provides more information on these signs. Local radio is recognized as a valuable tool for disseminating important information, and the partnership with the Ad Council allows for targeted messaging on a comm A couple of really good partners, the Alzheimer's Association and the Ad Council are two groups that we work with closely here at RNJ. They've announced they're teaming up to launch the Alzheimer's Awareness, which seeks to encourage early detection of Alzheimer's and other dementias by empowering family members to identify the early signs of Alzheimer's. And my guests who are joining me now here at the RNJ morning program to share this exciting information. First, we have the Director of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion with Alzheimer's Association. We have Yarissa Reyes who is with us here. Good morning, Yarissa. It's Bert Barron. How are you? Good morning. Happy to be here. Good to have you. Thanks for having me. My pleasure. And also joining you is the Chief Campaign Development Officer for the Ad Council. We have Heidi Arthur who is back with us today. Heidi, welcome back. It's Bert at WRNJ Radio. How are you? I'm great. Thank you so much for having me this morning. It's my pleasure to have you both join me here this morning to share this information. Let me start with you, Yarissa. As someone who lost his mom to Alzheimer's and dementia some years ago, there used to be a rule of thumb and a statistic that one in two people will in one way or another be impacted by Alzheimer's, either be afflicted personally or someone who is afflicted will be in your care as you continue to age. Does that still hold true that about 50% of the American population one way or another will be impacted by Alzheimer's or dementia? Yes, absolutely. This disease affects so many people, whether directly or indirectly, as you mentioned. More than 6 million Americans are currently living with Alzheimer's. And one in three seniors die from Alzheimer's or another type of dementia. Yeah. And as somebody who went through that personally, Yarissa, I know exactly what that's like. It could be a difficult conversation to have with doctors and health providers. What do you recommend to kind of break the ice and to have that conversation? And of course, include your loved one as well, because it's a journey that everybody's on together. What are some tips to maybe facilitating that conversation and beginning to have that dialogue? Absolutely. I think that we all could play a part. And part of this campaign is to be able to empower family members to have those conversations with their loved ones, but also with their care team, and that includes the medical providers. So we've created a page, a dedicated page for the campaign, 10finds.org, which offers the tools and resources and the inspiration to help start that conversation about cognitive concerns. Yeah. Any tip that can kind of knock that barrier down and begin the conversation, I think, is an important thing. In terms of getting the word out about this, partnering with the Ad Council, and by the way, I love the one with the spaghetti sandwiches where the guy says, Dad, you're the goat, when they're talking about that one. That's maybe my favorite one. But the Ad Council, a really good vehicle, and at RNJ, we air Ad Council announcements all the time. Talk about what this means to you, Heidi, to work with Alzheimer's and be able to get this critical information out to large numbers of people. Well, first, I want to thank you and your station for all of your support, and we're just so grateful to have this partnership with the Alzheimer's Association, because obviously, it's the best-in-class nonprofit really helping to find cures and to help families dealing with Alzheimer's, and this message is a critical message. We know that often somebody close to the family member is the first to notice, but if you're not aware of those signs and symptoms and you attribute them to normal parts of aging, often diagnosis can happen too late. So this campaign, Some Things Come with Age, is really designed to not scare people, but to really empower and educate them, and having the content in both English and Spanish so that we're really reaching the Hispanic community in a culturally relevant way is critical. Yeah, and information is such an important tool in the toolbox, if you will, when dealing with this, so when it's yourself or a family member, of course. We know, of course, the great work that the Ad Council has done for such a long time, Heidi, in my world, in the radio world, but we'll see these on television and maybe on some websites and some digital platforms where people are going to be able to get this important messaging as well. Absolutely. We're meeting people where they are. The community is so fragmented today, so it's very important for us to develop content that can really show up in many different places, so it includes digital video, television, again, all content is in English and Spanish, web banners, we have print, out of home, and, of course, radio. Yeah, of course, radio. We're so happy to help you spread these messages. My guest this morning here at the RNJ Morning Program, Yarissa Reyes, who is with the Alzheimer's Association, and Heidi Arthur, who is with the Ad Council, and talking about a brand new important campaign called Some Things Come with Age, and it's dealing with Alzheimer's awareness, and it's really an important initiative, and we're happy to help spread the word on this this morning. Yarissa, early signs, early detection, are there any textbooks or things that maybe people should look for if they suspect maybe early-onset dementia or Alzheimer's in a loved one? Is there anything people should specifically look for? Yeah, we've created 10 Early Signs and Symptoms of Alzheimer's and Dementia, and this list of the 10 signs is available at 10signs.org, but really, we're looking at memory loss that disrupts daily life, so, you know, we all misplace things from time to time, you know, we put our keys down or our phone down and forget where we put them, but we're able to retrace our steps. Someone that's dealing with cognitive issues may not be able to retrace their steps, so that would be a red flag. I think they call it a senior moment sometimes, right, when you have one of those. Right, right, but, you know, there's things like confusion with time or place, trouble understanding visual images, new problems with speaking or writing, poor judgment, you know, we see a lot of people who make financial decisions that are not in their best interest, so those are all red flags, and we have this list created so that families can get, you know, more information, see what typical age-related change and what isn't, and again, that website is 10signs.org. Excellent information, and Heidi, Arthur from Ag Council, one last thing for you, when I'm watching what's going on, unfortunately, for the residents of the state of Hawaii, and you see all the devastation and the loss of life, which just continues to get worse and worse each day, they're trumpeting local radio as having a positive difference and being maybe the best and preferred way to get local information out to the residents there. I think about what we do here in New Jersey and the local radio that we provide, and great partners like yourself, like the Ag Council, being able to work on a local station level, one-on-one with stations like this one, to help get messages out like the one you're talking about today is really still such an incredible and still such an important part of daily life, just being able to get information into the hands of people. Yeah, we couldn't agree with you more, and, you know, you're a trusted voice in the community, and when it comes to public health issues and really knowing who to listen to, it's so critical that we have those that are really rooted in the community getting these messages out, so we can't thank you enough for your support and know that this message can really help change lives at the end of the day, which is what we're all about. You're right. We see how important it is. The website campaign, again, is the number 10, the word signs.org, 1-0-S-I-G-N-S.org, and really good information, again, that is dealing with Alzheimer's. Again, the campaign is called Some Things Come With Age. Thank you both, Yarissa and Heidi. Thank you both for joining me this morning. I'm sure you have many other stations and markets across the world and country to talk to today. Thank you so much for the time, and thank you for all you're doing. Thank you so much.