The Arbor Company had the pleasure of recently interviewing Holly Clinton, Senior Walk Manager with the Alzheimer’s Association to gain insights into the organization itself as well as the abundant ways her team of experts help raise money for cutting-edge research and treatments, so families navigate the road ahead with confidence, assistance, and a wealth of knowledge that is only a phone call away. Click on the video below to learn more!
As Holly highlights, The Alzheimer’s Association is certainly leading the charge when it comes to memory research and pioneering innovative methods to slow the progression of Alzheimer’s and other types of dementia while also helping individuals with memory loss live their best lives.
By partnering with The Alzheimer’s Association to provide our award-winning services across the country, The Arbor Company is proud to be a part of redefining the memory care journey so that individuals with memory conditions and their families enjoy peace of mind, an engaged lifestyle and meaningful connections every step of the way.
To learn more, stop by one of our communities nearest you or call our dedicated team anytime at (404) 237-4026!
Hi, everyone, and welcome to this week's episode of Senior Living Live. We are so excited. We are on-site in beautiful Fort Worth Texas, and I am joined today with Holly Clinton from the Alzheimer's Association. Thank you so much for joining.
Yes. Thank you for allowing me to be here.
Oh, well, I have lots of questions, but, before we get into what you do, I Can you just tell me, I mean, people have heard about the Alzheimer's Association, but really give us a good overview of the Alzheimer's Association.
Sure. Yeah. So the Alzheimer's Association is a five zero one C three nonprofit organization.
We are in all fifty states throughout the United States, and we provide care and support and education programs to anyone facing Alzheimer's or any form of dementia are really any form of memory loss. You don't necessarily have be diagnosed with a form of dementia to receive our services.
And we provide those services absolutely free at no cost to the individuals who receive them their caregivers as well. We are also the largest private funder of Alzheimer's research in the entire world. So, the fundraising events that we do through the walkton Alzheimer's, the longest day, any of our Gala events or other signature fundraising events, that goes toward all of our programs and services and research that we provide.
Could you give me just a quick overview of what those services can entail?
Sure. So here locally in the Greater Fort Worth area, we support individuals living in Tarrant County and thirty nine other counties throughout North Central, Texas.
And we have, support groups as well that that we both facilitate and we train others to facilitate throughout our forty County area.
We provide education programs to large groups.
So anyone, if if that group is, you know, fifteen people or fifteen hundred people. We can provide education programs and tailor it to their needs, anywhere from a twenty minute program to a sixty minute program. It can be over lunch and learn, and it can also be a series of of education programs, such as knowing the ten signs of Alzheimer's understanding, Alzheimer's and dementia behaviors, things like that. So we can definitely tailor that toward the audience as well if it's more of a a healthcare audience or just the general lay population.
Yeah. That education is so important when it comes to memory care or memory related issues.
That's fantastic. Well, let's actually talk about what you do.
Sure.
So you're the senior walk manager.
So we all know about the all time walk. But let's talk more about, you know, what that looks like for you and even that impact that it has.
Sure. So I love the walks in Alzheimer's. I've been, manager for the Watson Alzheimer's for over five years with the Alzheimer's Association.
And the Walk is our largest fundraising event. It's actually the largest, fundraising event for Alzheimer's research in the world. And the reason why that's the case is because we have over six hundred walks throughout the United States. So our walk here in Fort Worth is just one of six hundred walks. And together, we our goal this year is to raise over one hundred million dollars for the Alzheimer's Association and all of that money, of course, goes back into our programs and resources that are no cost to the individuals that we provide those services for and also the research funding as well. And we've made great strides on that front. We now have treatments that available for individuals living with Alzheimer's disease that's, covered by Medicare.
And, you know, a couple years ago, even a year ago, we wouldn't be able to say this. And so we're super excited about that and that research is ultimately going to help us find a cure one day. Hopefully, in my lifetime.
Yes. Definitely.
It's such a great opportunity to get involved.
Talk to me a little bit about why, you know, it's important to get involved with the Alzheimer's Association.
Yeah. Absolutely.
So, there's a lot of different ways to get involved, especially if you want to become a volunteer for the Alzheimer's Association I'm I'm the senior walk manager, so I have walk volunteer walk committees that I work with, not just during walk season, which is in the fall, but actually year round, it takes a full year to plan for the walk that's coming up in the fall of next year. And so through the volunteer walk committees, we, fundraise for the walk and we plan all of the logistics for walk day. We coordinate all of the, and day of engagement activities and volunteer opportunities that day.
So I have a lot of needs for volunteer support for the walkton Alzheimer's and other fundraising events that we do as well. But other volunteer opportunities that we have, which we really are encouraging people to, to partake in is becoming a dementia educator So, basically, what that entails is we can train individuals into, how to become a dementia educator, which is providing education programs to the general public. So some of those programs that I mentioned earlier, like knowing the ten signs of Alzheimer's understanding Alzheimer's and dementia behaviors, we can train individuals to provide those education programs to the general public And, it's about a twelve hour, course, training course, and then we just ask that individuals are able to do at least two hours a month of, or two sessions of community training each month, to kind of keep up with that.
A knowledge that they have. Absolutely.
Yeah.
How, yeah, our audience is all over, just like you guys are.
Could someone find a walk near them?
Of course. So they can go to a l z dot org slash walk, and it's super easy. All they would need to do is type in their zip code or the city that's closest to them or the city that they live in, and then it'll show a map and a general radius of all the walks that are near them. And they can just choose, the closest walk or whatever walk they want to participate.
And the great thing is that it's not always on the same day. They're always on different weekends. So you may have a walk that's happening in your area next Saturday or one that's happening, you know, two or three weeks from now close by. So you can kinda choose based on where you wanna go and what Saturdays or Sundays you're available.
So you've talked amazingly about the education available, you know, that you all doing, which is absolutely fantastic. And of course, we, at senior living lab, we're always trying to provide that education as well. So Alzheimer's Association is such a great resource for anyone who may be going through, you know, memory care related issues or having a loved one.
And so How could the Alzheimer's Association support someone who might just be at home on their computer watching this episode?
For sure. So I would definitely recommend going to our website a l z dot org for a vast array of information on practically almost any topic of Alzheimer's and dementia that they can find.
I would I would say, they can they can use our search tool and type in, you know, a topic or a phrase that they're interested in such as, you know, how to find a memory care community for my one. You know, that's that they could search for that. We also have, you know, our menu bar where they could learn about things like that or they could go to our research pages and learn about the research that we're funding and just the all of the research that's happening worldwide to, support, ways to find cures for Alzheimer's and dementia.
So alz dot org is a great, great resource to go to. I also recommend the other website I recommend going to is community resource finder dot org.
So you can get to community resource finder from ALZ dot org, but that is also a separate website of ours too. I love community resource finder because if you're searching for a memory care community or you're searching for in home care or adult daycare or, engagement activities for your loved one community resource finder is a great, great website.
Basically, you would type in your zip code. You would type in, you know, a five mile up to, I think, fifty or a hundred mile radius of where you want the service to be.
And you would choose what kind of service you want and then it would populate a list of different services in your area that you're looking for. So those two websites a l z dot org and community resource finder dot org would definitely recommend.
Oh, those are great resources.
Well, Holly, I cannot thank you enough for stopping by and having this conversation with us. Sure. You're welcome. Thank you.
Alright, everyone. If you are interested in learning more about memory care, dementia care, and see more videos like this. You can go to senior living live dot com. Also, make sure you check out the Time's Association website and get involved where you can. But for now, that's it. Bye everybody.