Piedmont Park hosts Walk to End Alzheimer's

Let's talk about this event happening in our area. It's the Walk to End Alzheimer's and our Maria Guzman joins us live now to talk about what's happening there today. Maria, thanks so much for joining us from Piedmont Park. It's dark. Hey, Jasmine. Yes, good morning. You know, this walk is being hosted by the Alzheimer's Association. And right now we have over 19 participants that are doing this walk right now as we speak. I'm going to go ahead and put my camera to show you guys the route right now. So we have over 200 teams. And so far, they have raised over $600,000. So the goal is to reach about 700,000, and so that number keeps on changing as this is an ongoing fundraiser right now. Many of these participants either have someone who is walking through Alzheimer's, have lost someone due to Alzheimer's, so it hits home for many of them. I got the chance to speak with one of the organizers who has turned his grief into advocacy, so let's go ahead and take a listen to his story. My father passed away last year in March after suffering the disease for eight years. His sister passed away six months later from the disease, and their father, my grandfather passed away in 94. So for a long time here in Atlanta, my wife and I We're primarily focused on dad, his sister, my aunt in the caregiving capacity but this year I really started to focus the lens on myself because the reality is I've got a high likelihood of having to face this in my lifetime. The difference between what my father went through and what my grandfather went through and this is finally we're in an era of hope where we can with appropriate blood biomarker tests we can detect this disease and with the appropriate treatments we can delay the onset of signs and symptoms by decades. This is not just a cause for some theoretical family member who I knew a long time ago. This is a story about my father, and now it's a story about me and my family. And what I love about walking in through that gate is seeing the number of people who are ready to lift up a flower in support of a loved one, as a caregiver, or someone who has lost to the disease, and a sense of community and real purpose that people have here today. The Alzheimer's Association partitions the funding out for research for the disease, for advocacy for the disease, And also for general support. So one of the things that the association does, which is fantastic, is it has a 24/7 helpline, a 1-800 number you can call, that are staffed by practitioners who understand what you're going through. So whether you're just asking questions, whether you're living with a disease, there are answers there. Obviously research is a huge part of the fundraising. There's so many things happening right now, including two medications that have been Recognized by the FDA, they're available now. I have friends on the board with me at the association who are on these medications and it's completely changed their lives. So the funding goes towards research, it goes towards building up awareness, and then what I mentioned earlier, advocacy. So right now they're walking either a one mile or a three mile option but stories like these are very common today. In the next hour we're gonna hear from another walker whose mom is currently undergoing Alzheimer's and he's here for the first time. This is his first walk to end Alzheimer's happening in Piedmont Park, Jasmine. All right, Maria, that sounds good. Thanks so much for joining us live today to talk about these stories. So we look forward to continuing our conversation as the walk to end Alzheimer's continues in Piedmont Park.