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Op-ed: If we can go to Pluto, we can solve Alzheimer’s — if we want to

Don Gale.

Not long ago, my wife and I marked 61 years of marriage. But two or three times a week, she asks me, in all seriousness, "Are you married?"

We have lived in the same house for more than 45 years. But when we drive up the driveway each evening, she says: "Don't go here. I don't like it here. Take me home." We drive up the driveway each evening because we eat out. Every day. We eat out because whatever I fix for her at home she will not eat. When we pull into the parking lot of any restaurant, she invariably says, angrily, "I hate this place." She refuses to get out of the car until I make false promises to entice her into entering the restaurant. Sometimes she will eat a little. Often she won't.

On the way home, she asks where we're going. I resort to subterfuge. I tell her we're going to her house. Then I ask her if I can come in for a drink of water, or to watch television, or to rest. Sometimes it works. Sometimes it does not. If it doesn't work, we're back to "Take me home." I can never convince her that she already is home; reasoning is counter-productive. After a half hour or so of showing her around, pointing to her clothes in the closet, and telling a few more lies, she settles down.

She frequently tells me that she loves me. But she says the same thing to almost everyone we meet at the restaurant, or the grocery store, or wherever we go. She shows affection for strangers but rejects our two daughters when they come to visit. She greets strangers as if they were old friends. This confuses the strangers, who leave wondering where and when they knew my wife and me. It may sound humorous. But it isn't.

Nothing about Alzheimer's Disease is humorous.

If you do your best to care for a loved one at home, it will break your heart and your spirit. If you send your loved one to a care center, it will break you financially.

It's easy to convince one's self, intellectually, that a care center would be best. After all, personnel there are trained and equipped to provide medical care and activities, the services you cannot provide at home. But after a few visits to even the best of care centers, you ask yourself: "Is this the place I want my wife (or my husband or my mother) to spend the final months or years?" And then you ask: "Is this the place I want to visit every day or week or month for the rest of my life?"

The real question is: "Why can't we solve this problem that affects more and more of our citizens?" After all, we sent a spaceship on a nine-year journey to Pluto. It arrived within a few minutes of the scheduled time. It took fantastic photos. And it sent those photos back to earth, billions (yes, with a 'b') of miles away.

If we can go to Pluto, we can solve the Alzheimer's problem. If we want to. But we would rather go on vacation, eat too much, or suffer through another stock market collapse than spend money on research. We could probably resolve Alzheimer's with the money we spend on propaganda during one political cycle … or the money we spend on football during half the coming season … or the money we spend entertaining ourselves on a weekend. It is not a matter of giving up these uniquely American niceties; it's simply a matter of shifting priorities slightly. It isn't whether we can, but whether we want to.

Our young people are much more capable than their parents. They can solve this and other problems if we convince them to focus their capabilities away from personal pleasure and toward serious social, medical and technological problems. Such as Alzheimer's Disease.

The population grows older. Age-related mental health diseases grow more prevalent. If we don't encourage young minds to find answers for these maladies, the diseases of age will soon drain both our resources and our psyches.

Don Gale believes young people can accomplish whatever they set their minds to do.Ga.