Don Gale: Perhaps a free-thinking millennial will crack the Alzheimer’s code

A year ago, I wrote about challenges resulting from my wife's Alzheimer's disease. I said, in part: "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."

In May, I made the decision to send my wife of 62 years to a care center. It was the most difficult decision I ever made, the worst decision I ever made, and the only decision I could reasonably make. I investigated several options. I found a location where the care givers really do care, where surroundings are clean and well managed and where food is nutritious and well prepared. I couldn't ask for more.

Except.

When I visit her, she doesn't know me. She always says, "I love you." And I take it personally. But she says the same thing to anyone who will sit with her for 30 seconds. They tell me she eats too little at meal times. If I'm there at snack time in the afternoon, she will eat only if I feed her — one spoonful at time — like I fed our children those many years ago.

The other day, I arrived at story time. My wife and 25 or so "neighborhood" friends sat in rapt attention while a care giver told them about the three little pigs, Goldilocks and the three bears and Little Red Riding Hood. (Bless those caretakers — such patient and caring souls.)

Each visit depresses me for two days ... and then it's time to visit again. I become depressed not necessarily because of my wife but because of where she and her new friends are in life. These struggling women were wives, mothers, grandmothers and friends. They were active, involved, contributing members of society. Now they are essentially sidelined. Waiting. Unable to function socially.

As I said in my earlier column: "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."

Today's young people — called "millennials" — are bright, capable human beings. They have infinitely more advantages than my generation — or any other generation, for that matter. I'm told millennials care a great deal about others. If so, they should focus on finding answers to some of the problems that plague my generation and will soon plague their own cohorts.

We think we know what Alzheimer's is. Scientists call it plaque buildup in nerve cells. (I suspect that description is less than accurate.) It seems to be a fairly simple disease, unlike the endless complexities of cancer. We don't know why it seems to be more prevalent these days or what triggers it. My own chief suspects include diet drinks, electromagnetic waves and household chemicals. But scientists tell me I'm wrong. We think Alzheimer's disease has genetic components, but we don't know for sure. Local scientists are in a unique position to find out because of the unique access to hereditary data in our area. However, researchers need the will and the funding to identify the role of genetics.

Considerable research is underway around the world … but not enough. And I suspect most researchers are in a thought box. I'm told millennials have a propensity for thinking "outside the box." It's time for that kind of thinking with regard to Alzheimer's disease … and a few other insidious diseases of age. Maybe we spend too much time cramming young people into thought boxes and not enough time helping them spring free from traditional thinking.

Perhaps there are no answers to Alzheimer's, or Parkinson's, or arthritis, or other afflictions of age, but I'm not ready to give up yet.

And I'm confident bright, creative, thoughtful, caring young women and men will not give up, either.

I certainly hope so. My wife died only a few days ago.

Don Gale gave up medical school to become a journalist, but that was long ago.