Good Neighbor Podcast Northport
Bringing Together Local Businesses and Neighbors of Tuscaloosa and Northport!
Good Neighbor Podcast Northport
Cailyn Miller: Transforming Alzheimer's Awareness and Support Through Community Initiatives in West Alabama
Unlock the tools for making a real impact in the fight against Alzheimer's as we sit down with Cailyn Miller, Walk Manager for the Walk to End Alzheimer's in West Alabama. Discover the multifaceted work of the Alzheimer's Association, from their collaborations with the University of Alabama to their community-driven initiatives involving student groups like Sigma Kappa sorority. In this episode, Cailyn shares invaluable insights into how the association's 24-7 helpline serves as a lifeline, connecting those in need to essential local support services. Learn how these efforts are crafted to reach university students and residents of low-income areas alike, fostering a community of care, support, and advocacy.
Explore the critical importance of early diagnosis and medical consultations through thought-provoking discussions on recognizing the 10 warning signs of Alzheimer's. Understand how you can contribute to this crucial cause by volunteering or participating in initiatives like the Walk to End Alzheimer's. We highlight the significance of Alzheimer's and Brain Awareness Month, featuring programs that promote brain health and offer support to families and caregivers, including financial planning and caregiver support groups. Join us for a conversation that not only informs but also inspires action, offering listeners multiple avenues to get involved and make a difference in the lives of those affected by Alzheimer's disease.
#EndAlzheimers #WalkToEndAlzheimers #AlzheimersAssociation #BrainHealth #CaregiverSupport #CommunityImpact #VolunteerOpportunity #AlzheimersAwareness #BrainAwarenessMonth #AlzheimersResearch #EarlyDiagnosis #SigmaKappa #WestAlabama #StudentAdvocacy #SupportCaregivers #FightAlzheimers #AlzheimersCare #MentalHealthMatters #NeuroHealth #24Helpline #HealthAdvocacy #GNPBirmingham
This is the Good Neighbor Podcast, the place where local businesses and neighbors come together. Here's your host, Patricia Blondheim.
Speaker 2:Welcome to the Good Neighbor Podcast. I'm your host, Patricia Blondheim, and today we're speaking to Good neighbor Kaylin Miller, and Kaylin is the walk manager at the Walk to End Alzheimer's, which is part of the Alzheimer's Association here in West Alabama. Kaylin, how are you today?
Speaker 3:I'm doing good. Thank you for letting me be here.
Speaker 2:Can you give us an overview of the Alzheimer's Association in West Alabama and the specific communities that you serve in?
Speaker 3:West Alabama and the specific communities that you sold. Yes, so the West Alabama Walk to End Alzheimer's benefits the Alzheimer's Association, and so the association is a large association that covers the entire US and we actually have a couple of projects in a couple of different countries as well, and so our association is a nonprofit that has three main pillars we support care and support advocacy, and then research for a cure, and so I am based in West Alabama, so I cover all of the West Alabama counties. There's really not a specific territory, because truly anywhere in West Alabama or anywhere in the state where they need my help, I am there, but I am based specifically out of Tuscaloosa and our walk to end Alzheimer's is held in Tuscaloosa.
Speaker 2:Now you have a tremendous research resource with the University of Alabama. Yes, but West Alabama includes diverse populations. So how does the association balance outreach to students while addressing the needs of a largely low-income?
Speaker 3:community. So we have the Sigma Kappas on the University of Alabama's campus. We are their national philanthropy partner and so we utilize the students by. They are a major fundraising team for us and they also help with the logistics of the walk day. They volunteer their time on the walk day, so that's kind of how we utilize the students. There are other student groups. They volunteer on walk day. They have teams for the walk, but we make sure in the rest of the community to share our community education programs.
Speaker 3:These programs are completely free and they are either led by our staff or by some of our amazing volunteers, and truly our best resource that is accessible to all parts of our community, with the students on campus and with our other kind of lower income areas, is our 24-7 helpline. It's completely free, we share it all the time. We want people to use it and that really is our best resource that is accessible to everyone. As long as they have a phone, they can reach our 24-7 helpline and then that will help connect them to where they need to be. And I am going to go ahead and share that number with you now, so I'm going to talk about it. That number is 800-272-3900. So 800-272-3900. It's one of our best resources and we are always looking for people to volunteer. So if you want to get involved, you don't have to meet a fundraising requirement or minimum, anything like that. You can always volunteer or you can always ask for a community education program or caregiver support, things like that.
Speaker 2:Now you're primarily associated with the walk to end Alzheimer's, but can you share examples of other initiatives or events that you know that have engaged the broader community here in Tuscaloosa or near in West Alabama?
Speaker 3:So June is a big month for us. That's our ABAM month and it focuses completely on brain health. And so last June our committee really took the reins on ABAMs what we call it and we wanted to make sure that everyone in the West Alabama community had our resources. So we had a couple of different community education programs at different churches in the area. We made sure to pass out our brain health pamphlets into all of West Alabama at very popular like restaurants, coffee shops, different things like that. Community centers said people would know a lot about just taking care of your brain, because I mean Alzheimer's and dementia. There's no cure right now but if we can take care of our brain then we know that we are doing what we can to prevent Alzheimer's and dementia. So that was a big. It was a big initiative for us this year was for Alzheimer's, brain Health and Awareness Month in June.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we're learning more and more about the brain, and a lot of that has to do with the research into Alzheimer's right now. So we're learning more and more about how our brain functions and how it dysfunctions, and what this allows us to do is to maintain brain health rather than dealing with a terrible situation once you become less functional. That's right and that is huge. So that's a huge source of support for the community. But what other types of support does the association offer to family and caregivers?
Speaker 3:So through our 24-7 helpline, you're able to get connected to some other resources and support. The first one is just finding out who some of those people locally can help you and some of our community partners. So, since we focus on more of a long-term cure, long-term care, we have community partners like Connect, where Love Never Forgets is a great one of our community partners that can help you in the day-to-day. But we also have things like financial planning classes, legal assistance classes, because people don't think about that.
Speaker 3:It's a very serious thing when you get diagnosed with Alzheimer's or dementia. It's an expensive disease and we can help talk you through kind of the different levels of care and if you want to have, if you want to be in a memory care unit, if you would like to have home health, and we can kind of talk you through this. We've got some great community partners in the area that we work with. We also have virtual and in-person caregiver support groups. Our largest one right now is at Morning Point. That's where we have a caregiver support group. We also have them online and we have resources to make sure our caregivers are taken care of.
Speaker 2:Kaylin, what inspired you to get involved in Alzheimer's advocacy and support? Kaylin, what inspired you to get involved in Alzheimer's advocacy and support?
Speaker 3:So I grew up in a small town in Alabama and I lived and was very close to my mama so my mom's mom and when I was in sixth grade we had sixth grade graduation. I went to a really small school so I could see everyone in the crowd and I was looking for my mama and she wasn't there and I turned to my cousin, asked him if he had seen her and he said no, but we were in sixth grade, so we just bebopped along and graduated sixth grade. But that night we went to my mama's house and she couldn't even remember anything that she had forgotten that event. It was like my sixth grade graduation was completely deleted from her mind. And so then my mom took her to the doctor and she was later diagnosed with early onset Alzheimer's. And when I say that, completely changed my entire world.
Speaker 3:This was a woman who I saw a minimum three times a week until I went to college and she taught me how to bake sourdough bread. We sang together at church, we went on long walks and after she was diagnosed those long walks became I was holding her hand so she wouldn't leave with strangers. There was no more baking sourdough bread because she couldn't remember the recipe. I mean that five mile drive from her house to church she would get lost and we had to take away her keys. Someone that I loved I couldn't even recognize anymore and she couldn't recognize me.
Speaker 3:And I really needed something that I could put this grief into some action and into something good. Because living I mean her doctor was over an hour away. We had no resources. Nobody talked about the disease. Everyone just thought, oh, you're getting older. When you're older, you forget, or the stigma of, oh, they're just going crazy. No, it was a real disease and my family didn't. We didn't know about it. We didn't have education about the disease and joining the Walk to End Alzheimer's I started out as a volunteer.
Speaker 3:It really was somewhere I could put this grief about her being diagnosed into something good and knowing now the money that we raise and the support that we bring to the community and just sharing my story, it brings comfort to people and it brings hope. I mean we have treatment now. It's new but we have it and that's something that wasn't there before. And so I am involved for her and my papa was her full-time caregiver. He retired early to take care of her and she diagnosed I mean, she passed away just about three years ago, so she lived with the disease for a really long time and I know a lot of people have a story like that. So that's why I'm involved and that's why I do what I do and that's why I kind of also really like it. It can be something that's really sad, but it keeps me connected to them and that makes me really happy.
Speaker 2:That I mean it's a really vulnerable and intimate story and once you've been through it with somebody, you understand what's involved with this. But on the outside, or maybe if you're in, say, a rural, a rural region right In Alabama, where you don't have these resources and you don't have people to reflect off of right, say your, your, your healthcare, your healthcare is is an hour away. Like your, like your, your grandma's was they. They end up being in the middle of a lot of misinformation. Yes, right, so what are some misconceptions about Alzheimer's that you frequently encounter in our communities?
Speaker 3:Well, the first one is that memory loss is a part of typical and normal aging. That's not true. If you are experiencing large amounts of memory loss, then it is worth talking to your doctor about and monitoring. It's not typical aging to forget things all the time. Also, that it has to be people who are quote unquote really old. That's sadly not the case. Like I said, my grandmother she was diagnosed with early onset Alzheimer's, which means that she was under the age of 65. And so if you are experiencing memory loss, even if you are younger than 65, it's worth checking out.
Speaker 3:And then a lot of people they really think that kind of like ignorance is bliss. But I like to tell people ignorance might be bliss, but knowledge is power. Don't avoid going to the doctor. If you don't go to the doctor it doesn't mean it'll get better. And sometimes it's true, your doctor, it's far away, but I do recommend to people that it's worth it to go. It's worth it to make the drive, to try to get the ride to go, because if you can get an earlier diagnosis then you will be way ahead of the game in conversations, in treatment plans, in care plans, and it will make the process so much better and now sometimes in our rural areas it's very difficult. It's difficult to be able to travel to these places and so, if you are just like a regular community member and you're not worried about this for yourself, something I like to really kind of challenge people is to not be afraid to observe the people around you, to look out for warning signs.
Speaker 3:We have our 10 warning signs on our website, alzorg. I can share some of them with you. But if you are noticing some of the signs of Alzheimer's dementia, then I mean be exactly what you talk about on your podcast. Be a good neighbor. If you have a car that you can take someone somewhere, take them to the doctor, volunteer to go with them. If you know of a public transportation service, of a bus service, share that you know. Let people know that you are ready to help them, to support them.
Speaker 3:There were times when I was 16 years old when everybody else had to work and I would take my mom all to the doctor because that's just kind of what you've got to do. But if you know the warning signs, even if you are in a more rural area, if you are watching and paying attention, you have more time to plan on how to get to where you need to get more time to plan on how to get to where you need to get, and truly just the more that you can learn about the disease and being aware of it, it really will help some of the areas that are not as close to a doctor. Just right there, the general awareness.
Speaker 2:That's a great start right there, the general awareness. That's a great start. We need to raise awareness about the disease and about the you know the mechanical aspects of the disease, logistical aspects of the disease, especially in communities where healthcare access is limited, and the best way for you to do that is to use a large number of volunteers and I know that you are tied into the University of Alabama and, wow, what a tremendous resource. But you also need other volunteers too, don't you?
Speaker 3:That's right, we could always use more volunteers and, yes, we are super thankful for our students at Alabama. Some of our local high schools and middle schools have been getting involved with their FBLA groups. But we need community members too. We need them to help us plan the walk, to plan our fundraisers leading up to the walk. But we also need volunteers to just learn some of these community education programs, to just learn how to discuss the disease, just like you're talking about, so then they can share it with their communities. They can share it with their workout classes, with their church, with their book club, because the more that we can talk about it, the more that we can raise the awareness, the more people are comfortable with sharing.
Speaker 3:Hey, I'm worried about my mom. Hey, I'm worried about myself, because if we don't talk about it, I promise you people are. They are not going to talk about this disease, but if we bring awareness to it, it's huge. So, yes, we are always looking for different kinds of volunteers to help us and to join us in this fight against Alzheimer's and dementia. Well, how can our listeners in this?
Speaker 2:fight against Alzheimer's and dementia. Well, how can our listeners get involved with the Alzheimer's Association, you know? Whether through volunteering, donations or, like you said, spreading awareness.
Speaker 3:Yes, so we have our general association website. It's going to be alzorg and then you'll be able to find lots of resources, lots of different things. You can find our Alabama page. You can look for clinical trials there. If you want to be more involved with research, it's where all of our community educator things are, our caregiver support groups. And then we also have ALZorg backslash Tuscaloosa Walk and that's how you can find the Walk to End Alzheimer's and there are some volunteer tabs there. You can find my information on both websites but you can always email me at CP, as in Paul T-H-O-M-P-S-O-N at ALZorg. Or really I tell people I'm like just type in West Alabama, walked in Alzheimer's and you can find everything from here on Google, but there's a big volunteer button at the bottom of that walk website that you can see or you can email me and I can help you get to where you want to be.
Speaker 2:Wonderful and I will link to all that in the description below. Caitlin, thank you so much for coming by and sharing the Alzheimer's Association and the Walk to End Alzheimer's. Thank you, thank you so much.
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