Man With Alzheimer's Fights 'Family Disease'

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Alzheimers Patients Speak Out

At a town hall event held Monday in D.C. by the Alzheimer's Association, people in the early stages of the disease spoke about what living with Alzheimer's and Dementia is really like.

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Within weeks, he was put on notice of potential dismissal. His doctor, alerted to the symptoms, made an on-the-spot diagnosis.

For a while, Jackson maintained a journal. "Sometimes I feel that I am shrinking into myself," he wrote in one entry. "My brain becomes the focus; I lose touch with time and space. I stare at the walls or out the window, seemingly lost in thought. But I am watching or feeling the changes inside my head."

During the past year, such moments have increased. He was at the grocery store one day and kept losing track as he counted out change at the check-out counter. Behind him, he heard an impatient customer insinuate that he was drunk.

Of late, he has taken to posting sticky notes around his house to remind him not to leave burners on or water running. His gardening this spring has progressed, but slowly. The effort of organizing his tools and plantings is considerable, and one afternoon last month he had to sit down "and kind of grieve that thing for a while," he said.

He once thought he would turn to suicide when the balance of his existence finally tipped. Now he is not so sure. In conclusion to his testimony this morning, he plans to tell the Senate committee that he wants to be "an Alzheimer's survivor." He thinks saying that can make a difference.

He also believes:

"I could be in too big a hurry to get to the end and miss grandkids or a medical breakthrough. . . . Right now, I have a good life, even with the bad days."

The Alzheimer's Association shows the progressive nature of the disease in an interactive brain tour athttp://www.alz.org/brain/overview.asp.