The Prince Albert Walk for Alzheimer’s returned to Kinsmen Park on Saturday afternoon for the fourth year.
Traditionally, the event has been held in January at the Alfred Jenkins Fieldhouse, but for the fourth straight year, organizers chose to host it outdoors in the spring.
Laura Erickson, First Link Coordinator for the Prince Albert Alzheimer’s Society, said the walk is an important part of their awareness campaign.
“Alzheimer’s is a growing disease. We know that. The projections are becoming quite frightening when you think about it,” Erickson said. “They’re saying by 2030, upwards of 100,000 people in the prairie provinces will have dementia.
“That’s a lot of people. If we can raise some awareness, we can start people thinking about, we know that there’s some lifestyle things that can alter dementia at least somewhat. If we can get people thinking about those things, then the walk becomes all just a part of … how to raise some awareness, (and) how to talk about it.”
There were around 20 people at this year’s walk, which was down slightly from previous years but Erickson said that the event has been growing since the move to Kinsmen Park.
The annual IG Wealth Management Walk for Alzheimer’s raised nearly $40,000 locally, including about $25,000 from the Malcolm Jenkins Family Foundation.
“We seem to get more people, and we’re so very lucky because we have great community support here in PA that the pipe and drum band always comes,” she said.
The Prince Albert Highlanders Pipe and Drums have always led the walk on the first lap around the park.
“There’s something to be said for that. It doesn’t matter even if they’re busy with other things, they find two or three or four or however many people to lead the walk, and that’s a big thing,” Erickson said.
Before the walk began there were speeches by representative from the Alzheimer’s Society, and Rupert Bremner of IG Wealth Management, who sponsored the walk
Erickson said that the organization always receives excellent community support.
“Anytime we reach out to any business to request anything, they offer it to us,” she explained.
Erickson added that she has a call list for people affected by Alzheimer’s in Prince Albert.
“It has around 100 people every month on it. I do two support groups in PA and they would probably encompass around 30 people, so we’re looking at about anywhere from 100 to 125 people a month. When you calculate that over a year, it’s well over 1,000 people just in PA.”
She said that raising awareness is important because people do not want to think about dementia.
“It’s one of those things, and I think there’s a couple of factors with that,” she said. “Up until fairly recently, Alzheimer’s disease and related dementias have all been thought of as an older person’s disease.”
One example she gave is a rise in early onset Alzheimer’s.
“Early onset is becoming by far more prevalent. I’m not sure if it’s the world we live in, in terms of lifestyle factors, or if it’s just we’re becoming more aware and maybe doing some better diagnosis than we used to,” she said.
She added that Prince Albert now has a MINT (Multispecialty Interprofessional Team) Memory Clinic.
“There are a number of MINT clinics across the province, but PA has its very own, which is a big deal,” Erickson explained. “Memory clinics can offer up that early diagnosis and with PA’s MINT clinic, we’ve got that opportunity to offer up some early diagnosis, some early supports for folks (and) find out if it isn’t Alzheimer’s disease. Those things matter.”
michael.oleksyn@paherald.sk.ca
