Alzheimer's Association to host upcoming Women's AWARE Luncheon

The Oklahoma City Alzheimer's Association will be hosting the upcoming Women's AWARE Luncheon on April 29th at the Oklahoma City Golf & Country Club.

PREVIOUS COVERAGE: Alzheimer's Association Highlights Hope For Women At AWARE Luncheon

The Alzheimer's Association is dedicated to end Alzheimer's and all other types of dementia by accelerating global research, driving risk reduction and early detection, and maximization of quality care and support.

According to their website, the yearly support provided by the AWARE partners enable the organization to provide critical care to the 70,500 Oklahoman families who are currently living with forms of dementia, while funding research to reach their goal of ending Alzheimer's forever.

Co-Chair of the AWARE Luncheon, Christy Holland and luncheon committee member Cindy Reisen joined News 9 on the Coca-Cola Southwest Beverages Porch to discuss the upcoming event.

Are women at greater risk of Alzheimer's than men?

That's one of the things that we've been doing is we're doing research with in regard to why that's the case. One of the ladies that's going to speak at our luncheon is doing research with regards to hormones, whether menopause and post menopause play a role, whether you should take hormones, and if that has an effect on your brain. So that's one of the things that they're really looking into because it is disproportionate.

At the age of 45 on, if you're a woman, you have a one in five chance of developing Alzheimer's within your lifetime. Men only have one in ten, so that's another disproportionate statistic

How does this disease impact caregivers?

Caregivers a lot of times are taking care of small children and their elderly parent or parents. At the same time, it's hard on families. The other thing that we see is, statistically you see that the person who takes care, the caregiver, will die before the person with Alzheimer's because of the stress, and just the emotional toll. I mean, it had happened in my situation. My mom, her caregiver died before she did. The caregiver was younger and they're typically women. Typically, they say of the two-thirds that are caregivers, of the caregivers, two-thirds are women and a third of those are daughters.

How can I get involved?

The luncheon is April 29th at Oklahoma City Golf and Country Club. It's taking place from 11:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. You can go to awareok.org and get a ticket.