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Dear Editor:

There are more than 110,000 residents of our state living with Alzheimer’s disease and more than 348,000 family members and friends are acting as unpaid caregivers. Fellow Washingtonians who joined the 1,200 attendees at the Alzheimer’s Impact Movement Advocacy Forum in April in Washington, DC, said Congress was listening to their explanation of the burden that Alzheimer’s places on our state and nation.

This advocacy is important to me because I lost my husband to Lewy Body Disease which began with Alzheimer’s and I know the heavy burden that families carry. Legislators were asked to continue to increase funding for Alzheimer’s research at the National Institutes of Health, as well as fund implementation of the BOLD Infrastructure for Alzheimer’s Act, which Congress passed into law last year.

Alzheimer’s doesn’t strike just the elderly. The 200,000 Americans diagnosed with dementia before age 65 need services like in-home care, transportation, and caregiver support. Advocates asked members of Congress to cosponsor the Younger-Onset Alzheimer’s Disease Act, which will amend the Older Americans Act to serve these families too.

I am grateful that Congresswoman Suzan DelBene has cosponsored this needed legislation, H.R. 1903. Please join me in urging Congressman Rick Larsen to join her as a co-sponsor of the bill. All our members of Congress should continue to actively support policies that address Alzheimer’s disease as the national public health crisis it is.

Darcy Wells