here know what this means the raise of
hands to whoever knows what this means
well sign to say that Alzheimer’s is
actually a progressive disease that kind
of it decreases your memory and kind of
gives a lot of problems to your motor
functions so I’m going to ask you
another question
what does Alzheimer’s mean to you I’ll
give you some time to think about this
so to me
Alzheimer’s is something that is kind of
close to me my grandpa or as I used to
call him my Nana had it this disease
lasts a very long time for him he almost
had it for ten years about a year ago he
passed away so I’ll give you some
background on his life he was about a
teacher and a principal for almost 50
years in India he was an English
professor and even after school he would
give tutoring and he would um tutor kids
with science and English after school
every day after school so he was a very
very smart man and seeing this disease
take so much away from him it was kind
of heartbreaking so a symptom of
Alzheimer’s is called retro Genesis
which I had seen in him so what might
this be a symptom of Alzheimer is what
is that what this is raccho Genesis is
when a person the brain is basically
backtracked into their childhood so as
he got older he started hoarding a lot
of things like my books or my hair pins
or my hair clips and I felt like this
was something he may have done when he
was younger he would always ask me my
sister or my cousins to go and try to
find them like hide-and-seek in his case
as I told you he was an English
professor so he used to forget how to
speak English and then he would go back
to talking in his native language like
he did when he was a kid so sometimes my
not I became anxious and this is another
symptom of Izar MERS they get angry
emotional and you didn’t understand what
was happening so I kept asking myself
why what
do to deserve this and then as years
went on and as I got older and as he got
older it started getting worse and I
came to understand that this really
isn’t his fault and another question I
would ask myself is how can I help so I
just decided that maybe he just needs
patience as teenagers that’s the one
thing we can give him so he would always
ask me every single time I saw him how
old was I what grade was I and what did
I want to be when I grow up and this was
the three questions he would ask me
constantly any time I would see him it
would be after school in the morning
every day and I used to get frustrated
but then I had to remember that to step
back and understand that this isn’t his
fault this was just the disease talking
so what I decided to do is um I wanted
to help him in some way so after he
passed away I didn’t really know what to
do without him so I started attending
Alzheimer
Vox and I used to walk around all the
time with across Lansing in Grand Rapids
anywhere where they would have won and
then I decided why don’t I just start
attending some support groups and some
seminars so one day I actually took my
family along with me to a seminar about
Alzheimer’s and I saw this thing called
a virtual dementia tour and this tour
itself is actually quite heartbreaking
because you get to step into people’s
shoes with Alzheimer’s and see what they
deal with on a daily basis so I thought
well researchers and scientists and
doctors are trying to find a cure for
this I thought maybe maybe I could do
something to bring peace with my family
and other families who are dealing with
this so I decided to attend a
certification program for the virtual
dementia tour it was a six-hour course
and after that I was certified so in
this tour basically what you do is you
have gloves you have glasses you have a
headset you have these things in your
shoes that hurt a lot and these are just
a few of the things that people with
Alzheimer’s may have and what it does is
you walk into a room a very dark room
with strobe lights and with these strobe
lights what they do is they kind of show
you what the person is seeing when they
walk in somewhere and the headset itself
has very loud noises like sirens people
talking so it’s like there’s voices in
your head you’re given five tasks and
they might be easy tasks like fill Oh
fill a cup with water or maybe hang some
clothes or even write writing a simple
letter writing just a word and you may
think it’s easy but having the headset
having everything happening with the
gloves as arthritis and as the glasses
as cataracts it’s kind of it’s harder
than what you would think it would be so
I have taken this tour twice and each
time I probably only gotten one or two
tasks and I thought when walking into it
that oh this is going to be easy I’ll be
able to figure it out I can do this but
walking out of that it
I have changed not I wouldn’t say it
changed me as a person I would say that
it changed my mindset that all these
people are getting frustrated with
people who have dementia they’re getting
frustrated because they keep asking the
same questions they can’t do a simple
task and after experiencing this I saw
them in a whole new light that they go
through daily struggles just to get out
of bed just to pour a glass of water
just to wash their hands or their face
or anything and this is a whole
experience for me it opened up a new
light and I kind of advise everyone if
you have the chance go find someplace to
take this tour the tour is actually was
made by this company called second wind
dreams and they do a lot of research
into Alzheimer’s they do a lot of
Alzheimer’s awareness and this is where
the tour started itself so as a
conclusion to what I’m trying to say is
that you ever encounter someone you have
a grandparent or an aunt or someone is
showing symptoms of Alzheimer’s who or
who has Alzheimer’s it’s is something
that you should try to understand and
try to see and a lot see their point of
view in this case it’s heartbreaking to
see them go through this but there’s
things that you can do to help there’s
obviously the whole theme of this TED
talk is empathy so you can just try to
give them some of that they deserve that
at least thank you [Applause]