Get Involved! November is "National Alzheimer's Disease Awareness Month" & "National Family Caregivers Month"

Back in September, we honored World Alzheimer's Day by sharing a list of ways to get involved in your own communities and help spread awareness and support to the Alzheimer's community. Here at WEGO Health, some of us wore purple to commemorate the day. Now, a month and a half later, it is National Alzheimer's Disease Awareness Month and National Family Caregivers Month. Did you know Alzheimer's is known as the "family disease" because it so deeply affects a patient's entire family? It's true. In fact, 87% of all Alzheimer's caregivers are family members: children, spouses, or even grandchildren and brothers or sisters of the patient. Did you know that, in 2008 alone, there were 9.9 million Americans that acted as caregivers to an Alz patient, providing a combined total of 8.5 billion hours of care? These numbers alone allude to the serious nature of caregiving and the intense connection that family members have to their Alz relative.

But sometimes, even though we know how important it is to raise awareness or support a cause, we don't quite know how to get involved. This is especially true if we're already busy with other health communities and causes. So, to make it easier for you to get involved I compiled a list of really simple, quick ways to get involved with Alzheimer's this month and encourage those in your health communities to do the same. You don't have to be personally tied to Alzheimer's to use your Health Activist skills to help the cause.

What do you know about Alzheimer's? Get educated. Check out this Alzheimer's Fact Sheet I created. It includes some shocking projected percentages of Alz patients when baby boomers reach the age of 65. Join the WEGO Health Alzheimer's Group to share your thoughts on new discussions.

Whether Alzheimer's is present in your family already or not, Alzheimer's rates are only going to rise. With more Americans on medication and suffering other illnesses, dementia rates will also rise. It's likely that one day you will either be a patient or a caregiver for this terrible disease. This is one of the reasons why it's so important to raise awareness and get government attention now. Do you think health care reform will positively affect those with Alzheimer's or the caregivers of the disease? Join the discussion. What would you like to say to say to the government about Alzheimers? Write Congress here.

One of the best ways to prepare for Alzheimer's is early detection. Learn more about Alz.org's Early Detection Campaign.

Want to show your online friends your support for the Alzheimer's community? Become a fan of the Alzheimer's Association on Facebook. Check out other ways to Join the Cause. You can also donate or encourage others in your communities to do so.

Share other online media about Alzheimer's disease. Link to or reblog videos from the Alzheimer's Association's Youtube Channel. Sharing these videos in your online health communities is a really easy way to get people talking. A great short film centered around early-onset Alz is "My Name Is Lisa."

Interested in health technology? Read more about The Silver Alert, MissingPatient.com, Futuristic GPS Footwear, and Comfort Zone to see how the Alzheimer's community is already benefiting from technological advances.

Are you a football fan? Did you know that retired NFL players have a much higher risk for Alzheimer's and dementia? Learn more about that here.

Are you into new health food trends, alternative medicine, or just all-around healthy living? Have you heard any of the interesting and sometimes unbelievable Alzheimer's prevention ideas or "cures"? Check out a few of them here and add any you've heard of.

Remember you can tweet any of these links to your followers on twitter to help the Alzheimer's cause. Consider adding the hashtags #alz or #alzheimers. See what tweeting #beatcancer did a few weeks ago and join the forum discussion on tweeting for your cause here.

What will you do this November to support the Alzheimer's community of patients and caregivers this month?
What other strategies have your other online health groups used to raise awareness, funding, and spread the word?
What sort of event would you be most likely to join in?
Have you heard any great news or heartwarming Alz-related stories? Share them here.
What inspires you, as a Health Activist? Can you apply that motivation to the Alz community?

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