September is World Alzheimer’s Month, a time to raise awareness about the millions of Americans living with dementia and the families supporting them. In Oklahoma, caregivers and community leaders are working to connect people with resources that can make a difficult journey more manageable.
News 9 spoke with Herb Magley, a board member of the Alzheimer’s Association of OKC, and Becky Seda, owner of the Senior Living Truth Series, about an upcoming seminar designed to provide guidance, education and support for families navigating dementia. In this Q&A, they share their personal experiences and explain why no one should go through this alone.
Can you tell us about the Alzheimer’s Association of OKC?
Magley: Really, this is kind of a near and dear story to you, and it’s really important as well. Yes. Tell me a little bit more about it. My wife was 52 when she first started showing signs of this. She was a speech pathologist. And we went through 13 years on this journey. And two years into it, she lost the ability to speak. She could understand what people were saying, but she just couldn’t respond to it. And it was a tough, tough, tough thing. I knew nothing about Alzheimer’s at the time. I didn’t even know there was an Alzheimer’s Association. And fortunately, after she was diagnosed, and it took two years to do that, I found the Alzheimer’s Association, and that saved my life. And that’s why I decided that I was going to be as important a part as much as I could be. So I lead five support groups here in town. I’ve started five more. I do state and federal advocacy work. I do educational programs in the community. I travel the country doing speeches, and I do everything I can to save caregivers’ lives, because we lose one out of every five.
What is the Senior Living Truth Series?
Seda: So the Senior Living Truth Series is a free seminar series. We meet every month and we’re very strict about no sales pitch. It’s just good, honest information for seniors in our community. We have about 150 people who come every month and talk about a wide range of topics. And we have one coming up next week…