Patty Takawira

And we could talk about that probably the entire time because it's just so important, not only because of emerging treatments that may require the person to be at an earlier stage of dementia to be able to take advantage of those, but also just to better equip their loved ones and

remain in the driver's seat for as long as possible for their own life so there's more than just kind of the medical treatment side of it um you know there are ways to live a quality life and it's not um and there's there's potentially ways to help delayed decline um if you get you know a plan in place

early and kind of understand what the treatment options are.

So I would say those are the two kind of biggest areas of our work at MDH is really advocating for system changes in those areas, working with partners to spread awareness, and then just trying to collaborate across statewide partners to kind of identify where there's alignment and get more done together.

Do you want Barry to touch on that?

No, you go ahead.

Well, dementia is an umbrella term that describes a set of symptoms, and Alzheimer's is the most common form of dementia.

So when we're talking about Alzheimer's, we're just being more specific.

Right.

And I think this is really kind of step one, I think, for both providers and the general public to understand is when to

you know, get to that next step of talking to your provider about what's going on.

So a typical age-related change would be something like missing a monthly payment or forgetting which day it is and remembering it later or

you know, losing things from time to time, forgetting what word you're trying to say.

Um, and I, you know, I get these examples from the Alzheimer's association because they're really good at promoting this message about, uh, what is normal aging and what are signs and symptoms of Alzheimer's or dementia.

Um, so those are, those are typical age related changes, or, you know, if you're a busy mom, I would say that those are typical for me too.

Um,

But something like difficulty having a conversation, losing track of like what season it is or not, you know, you're noticing that your loved one's not able to manage their budget or or even they're doing something that I know one of our colleagues at the

public health center of excellence on early detection was talking us through, you know, the idea of using tools like the mini cog, those are great, but also if you're, you know, in the home of, of you know, a loved one or a community member who's been like cooking rice every day, their entire life.

And all of a sudden they're looking really confused about how to go about this thing that they have always, you know, that is, that is concerning.

So I think it's,