BY Brea Love (ABC10)
SACRAMENTO, Calif. — June is Alzheimer’s and Brain Awareness Month and a recent report shows a majority of Americans can’t spot the difference between typical cognitive decline and what causes Alzheimer’s.
There are hundreds of thousands of people living with the disease in California and the population is growing. Also growing is the more than one million unpaid caregivers trying to take care of their loved ones in the best way they can.
Sacramento resident Kerri Sanford is among the majority of Americans who say they didn’t recognize the difference between typical aging and Alzheimer’s. Sanford moved her parents to California to better care for her mother, but it wasn’t until they were close that she noticed little things about her father’s memory.
“My mother would say, you know, your father is getting forgetful and so, that’s when how it really was brought to my knowledge, but we just thought it was normal, the aging process,” Sanford said. “My parents didn’t share a lot of information with myself, so upon moving my parents here and you know, set up with their new doctors, that’s when I found out.”