Where is my head???? I advertised the telethon for two weeks on my home page, and completely forgot about it last night. Did anyone see it? If you did see it, what was your opinion?
You can watch it here. http://www.alzfdn.org/telethon/telethon_webcast.html
It is almost an hour long on the website. It was only 30 minutes here on NBC in the New York City market.
I recorded it and watched it last night. It was good to see, but I hope they expand and improve it and have it annually. Good to see the focus was on care!!!
I turned it off. Seemed like it dealt with taking care of parents. And, they kept on about sending money. I know several on here have said they didn't get any help from the Alzheimer Association.
Carolyn--It wasn't sponsored by the Alz Association--it was a different group, the Alzheimer's Foundation. I would be interested in knowing if anyone here been involved with the Foundation, and what was your experience? The telethon wasn't shown in this area; I was disappointed because I wanted our grandchildren to see the segment with Al Roker and the Sesame Street characters. I guess I could check out the website for it.
I get their newsletter, but don't know a lot about them. They have just come out with their monitoring system called the Breadcrumb GPS. Seems really good; two plans to choose from: Plan A - $190 for system, 28 month, 45 activation fee. Plan B - no charge for the system, $38 month; 45 activation fee, but has a 36 mon. contract with $175 early termination. They wear it on their ankle and it's monitored 24/7. If LO wanders outside the 300' perimeter, you and others will be contacted. Can also download to your smart phone.
Hmm...I can remember Jerry Lewis telethons since I was a young kid and each year he surpassed the previous year's contributions. I am so glad that all that money went to cure muscular dystrophy, and that no one suffers from that anymore.
I thought it was Ok. I guess I really felt a huge feeling of success at just getting it on the air. Maybe all the emails and letter and noise we have all made played a part in at least getting something started. It's a start, at least we got that.
I get requests for donations from this Alzheimers Foundation and I toss them. I donate to our local office here. If we send to the National Alz Assn our local chapter is to get a % but?? so I donate locally only. I do the same for the other sorts of requests too from PDs and Fire Depts etc...anything that goes to an office in some other state or in DC..forget it..
I'm not sure about this - I will research it when I get the chance, but my understanding is that the Alz. Association is heavy into fundraisiing for research, and the Alzheimer's Foundation of America is more into money for services for caregivers and patients. I keep meaning to look more into the Alz. Foundation, but you know how it is - only 24 hours in a day, and I'm using 27 of them.
I watched a few minutes of it but the two women hosts were not very exciting to hear. I also did not realize there were two different AD organizations.
Our mission is ”to provide optimal care and services to individuals confronting dementia, and to their caregivers and families—through member organizations dedicated to improving quality of life.”
I access their website quite often and find it interesting as well as helpful in a lot of areas.
FYI, apparently there is a lot of confusion about the 2 organizations. I was Googling the Foundation and saw there's an ongoing lawsuit between them and the Alz Assn re misdirected contributions. It's a shame the 2 groups can't work together.
My weekly support groups are with the local branch of the Alz. Foundation, not the Alz. Association. Where I live, in my opinion, the AA just does not adequately meet the needs of caregivers and those with AD as well as the AF does! The AA provides support groups once a month in the evening, for example, while the AF provides them weekly in the afternoon. The AA has their monthly support groups for caregivers in the evenings on different days and at different times ... and in a different location ... than where their monthly support groups for those with AD meet. At the AF, I meet with my caregiver group at the same time my wife meets with her AD group in a different room. The Long Island Alz. Foundation, in my opinion, just provides superior services to the Long Island Alz. Association.
I just got done watching it and I loved it but I wasn't thinking in terms of their asking for money I was thinking of only in terms of making people aware. The biggest trouble that I have had as a caregiver from the outside, professionally and personally has been either they don't believe me that my DH has dementia just because he is not close to death yet and they say that he isn't that bad off because at least he doesn't have alzheimer's, so for me I thought they did as good as they could for the amount of time that they had. Could they have said more and had less entertainment? Yes, probably so but at least they did it! As long as humans are in charge of financial matters I think there is going to be mistakes made and greed taken over.