HUDSON, OH - Willie Norman Walker was a Korean War veteran who regularly read the newspaper, loved to do crossword puzzles everyday that challenged his thinking and as his wife Edna Walker said, “was the smartest person I know.”
An Army weapons specialist from Georgia, Walker ended his military service in the 1950s. But during retirement, he started forgetting where he was putting things and “just to look at his face and see the disorientation I knew something was wrong,” Ms. Walker said.
She took him to a Veterans Affairs Medical Center to get checked. The diagnosis –vascular dementia. Walker was in his early 70s. “The VA was a big help to me. I called them, and I told them that my husband was a veteran and I want to get some help from the VA because he put his life on the line for us.”
In Ohio, efforts to identify veterans at risk of dementia and Alzheimer’s are intensifying. In September, the Cleveland Alzheimer’s Disease Research Center (CADRC) received a grant from the National Institute on Aging to specifically target and enroll veterans with mild cognitive impairment and early Alzheimer’s into dementia research. The data obtained will be put into a national repository for other researchers who want to study
veterans and dementia.
“We’re very excited. This is a unique opportunity. It takes advantage of some of the strengths that Ohio has in terms of veterans…We really have an expertise of those resources that are sort of unique in the country,” said Dr. Martha Sajatovic, Outreach, Recruitment and Engagement Core Leader at the Cleveland Alzheimer’s Disease Research Center.
In 2020, an estimated 465,000 veterans nationwide were living with Alzheimer’s disease, according to an U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs report. Veterans are at higher risk for dementia. Those with a traumatic brain injury or post-traumatic stress disorder are 60 more likely to develop dementia.
Ohio has about 877,000 veterans, according to the Ohio Department of Veterans Services. But in the Dayton, Ohio region, home to one of the United States Air Force’s largest installations -Wright Patterson Air Force Base -, there are an estimated 200,000 veterans and a unique partnership between the Alzheimer’s Association, Wright-Patterson and the Dayton VA Medical Center to identify veterans with cognitive issues and connect them to the Alzheimer’s Association for education, care consultations and support. The Task Force also has a robust referral process for doctors to refer families to the Alzheimer’s Association after diagnosis for ongoing education and help.
The region is a great example of the need nationwide. “Our Military Task Force, whose members are either veterans themselves or they work with the veterans’ population, are uniquely positioned to carry the message that veterans are more likely to get Alzheimer’s or dementia and encourage their families to seek help,” said Eric VanVlymen, Regional Leader of the Alzheimer’s Association in Ohio. “I really believe this model can be replicated around the state and around the nation. By building sustainable partnerships with our veterans’ organizations we can work together to reach more people.”
Through efforts of the Alzheimer’s Military Task Force, volunteers have conducted 35 educational programs and reached more than 2,600 community members. Task force members have gone to local VFW halls and other places to meet with veterans’ groups, conducted training sessions for the VA, Ohio’s Hospice and Wright-Patterson physicians, and trained county veterans’ services officers about the free dementia services available through the association.
Cassie Barlow, Chair of the Task Force and former 88th Air Base Wing and Installation Commander at Wright-Patterson, said, “In the United States, veterans who are 65 years old and older, make up 65 percent of veterans. I am trying to end the stigma around getting help. People go to the doctor for physical ailments, why not do the same for cognitive and memory issues.”
Summit County, according to the U.S. Census Bureau, has an estimated 33,724 veterans. Dr. Sajatovic, who is also Director of the Neurological and Behavioral Outcomes Center University Hospitals Cleveland Medical Center Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine, said the CADRC is working with the Louis Stokes Cleveland VA Medical Center to identify veterans for the research project. She said it is an important group to study because “veterans are a group that is at higher risk for dementia-related conditions and they also aren’t uniformly well represented in research.”
“There are not that many other ADRC (Alzheimer’s Disease Research Centers) that have formal VA partners,” Dr. Sajatovic said. She said the plan is to work with a stakeholder advisory group at the VA and test some novel health communication methods around dementia, like videos, to break down some of the barriers of veterans’ participation.
Alzheimer's Association
The Alzheimer's Association leads the way to end Alzheimer's and all other dementia — by accelerating global research, driving risk reduction and early detection, and maximizing quality care and support. Our vision is a world without Alzheimer's and all other dementia.™ For more information, visit www.alz.org or call the 24/7 Helpline at 800.272.3900.