Last Saturday, the Alzheimer’s Society of Alberta and the Northwest Territories held its annual memory walk in Sir Wilfrid Laurier Park.

If you were one of the people that turned out to support the event, I salute you.

However, I know this disease doesn’t attract the attention that other diseases do. It just isn’t sexy enough for that to happen. It doesn’t affect young people. You never see celebrities who have the disease. And no one ever comes back from Alzheimer’s to thank those who helped pay for the research that made a return to normalcy possible.

Unfortunately, there is also the unstated feeling that because it’s primarily a disease of older people, it is somehow less tragic than those diseases that affect children and adolescents. A quick survey of those with loved ones with Alzheimer’s would quickly dispel that notion. Watching your mother or father disappear one day at a time is nothing if not tragic.

How would you like to spend the last few years of your life in chemical or physical restraints?

If you are sitting on a bus or on the LRT, count 10 people beside yourself. The odds are that one of the 11 of you will be suffering from dementia at age 65. With a little luck, that person will have a supportive family to make sure Alzheimer’s doesn’t rob him or her of dignity.

However, the odds are pretty good that their last few years on this planet are going to be anything but pleasant. A friend of mine who visits her mother several days a week asked at the facility where her mother lives how many families came to see the residents. Of the 36 men and women, only four had family who visited them with any frequency.

The 2006 census indicated Edmonton has about 87,000 people older than the age of 65. Using the one-in-11 figure, that means almost 8,000 Edmontonians are likely to have some stage of dementia.

The city has a number of initiatives designed to make it an age-friendly place to live. It also has an Alzheimer’s strategy. But it is up to you and me to familiarize ourselves with this disease and to advocate for those who can no longer speak for themselves.

At the very least we could support the research that will lead to either prevention or a cure.