O'Connor urges help for Alzheimer's disease

| Sunday, May 25, 2008 12:29 AM PDT ∞

WASHINGTON ---- Retired Justice Sandra Day O'Connor knows the daily balancing act that Alzheimer's caregivers face: When her husband could no longer stay home alone, she had to take him to work with her at the Supreme Court.

Now O'Connor has taken her family's struggle with Alzheimer's public as she called on Congress May 14 to spur efforts to fight the nation's coming dementia epidemic.

"I cannot overemphasize the need for urgency," O'Connor said in testimony prepared for the Senate Special Committee on Aging. "We must resolve, by our swift action, that the current generation of people with Alzheimer's will be the last generation that we lose to this miserable disease."

More than 5 million Americans are living with Alzheimer's disease, O'Connor's husband, John, among them. O'Connor stepped down as the first female Supreme Court justice in 2005 to move her husband to an assisted care center in Phoenix, near two of their children. Intensely private, she has said little until now of the family's experience except that she regretted having to leave the high court so soon.

Alzheimer's is poised to skyrocket, with 16 million people forecast to have the mind-destroying illness by 2050. Today's treatments only temporarily alleviate symptoms. Already, the Alzheimer's Association estimates that 10 million people share the overwhelming task of caring for a relative or friend with it.

"I suspect that you will not hear from many of my fellow caregivers directly ... simply because they do not have the resources to take time away from their loved ones in order to come before you," O'Connor said.

Against that somber backdrop, a group of scientists, former politicians and well-known names like O'Connor have teamed up to create what they call a "national strategy" to jumpstart efforts to speed research into new Alzheimer's treatments and improve help for caregivers.

The so-called Alzheimer's Study Group won't have its report ready until next year, but began pushing lawmakers May 14 to start thinking about the needed investment despite tight economic times. Public funding for Alzheimer's has been stagnant for five years, O'Connor noted.

"You will never meet an Alzheimer's survivor ---- there are none," former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, who co-founded the group, said in his testimony.

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