of two special people who have never met
these people are my grandparents they
both live together in a small house in
Huntsville Alabama
with my two uncles my aunt and my father
even though I never met them I still
feel like they’re always with me I feel
like they’re always with me because they
want to see what kind of person their
son had created my grandfather was a
soldier and my grandmother was a
stay-at-home mom to work for real estate
I have the utmost respect for both these
people and I respect them in many
different ways I suspect my grandmother
because she made the person my father’s
today and I respect my grandfather
because he fought for our country and
probably saved many people’s lives
unfortunately I never met either one of
these great people because they both
died from Alzheimer’s now is the time in
2017 for Alzheimer’s and memory to
become a national priority memories the
faculty in which the mine stores and
remembers information we use memory in
our everyday lives such as you the
audience listening to my speech your
brain is working to connect my voice
into memories in your mind studies have
shown that most of the language
processing functions are stored in the
cerebral cortex the essential function
of cortical language is symbolic
representation even though language
comes in many different forms all of
them is based on symbolic representation
we can store an amazing amount of
information for example as a child you
can learn ten or more words a day and
eventually a hundred thousand or more
words in a lifetime you’ll never be able
to earn that much information without
memory Alzheimer’s is the most common
form of dementia a general term for
memory loss and serious enough to
interfere a daily life it accounts for
60 to 80 percent of dementia cases
Alzheimer’s can make you forget
important dates or events ask for the
same information over and over and
increasingly rely litter aids but
Alzheimer’s can progressively get worse
the person with Alzheimer’s can think of
family members as strangers but but
Alzheimer’s doesn’t just disrupt the
memory it can overall change someone’s
personality Alzheimer’s costs a hundred
eighty three billion dollars
of eleven billion dollars from the prior
year with a hundred eighty three billion
dollars you could buy Google by
mid-century Alzheimer’s could cost our
country up to a trillion dollars because
of Alzheimer’s my father got into a
shocking situation my grandfather one
cold night in Huntsville Alabama my
father who was 45 at the time was moving
my grandfather who is 71 at the time
into a retirement home because he could
not live in his own anymore due to
Alzheimer’s once my father finished
packing my grandfather’s bags he went to
sleep on the couch about 3:00 a.m. he
woke up with the startled to see his
father standing right in front of him
his father said don’t ever touch my
stuff my father had no idea what he
meant until he realized he was scared
about moving it into a into a retirement
home about 15 minutes later my grand 50
minutes later my grandfather forced my
father outside the house into the bitter
cold then later my father realized he
was scared about moving into her
charming home memory is important
without it the president has no meaning
Alzheimer’s Rob’s people of their lives
because it takes away their ability to
treasure their legacy as humans my
grandparents names were Marie and Carol
key even though they lost their memory
due to Alzheimer’s today I’m here to
honor the memory of the people they were
thank you [Applause]