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Actor urges Alzheimer's Caregivers to seek Support
By Kathleen Fackelmann, USA TODAY
March 29, 2004
David Hyde Pierce, the actor best known for his character Niles Crane on the hit sitcom Frasier, knows all too well the devastation Alzheimer's disease brings to millions of American families.
Pierce will never forget that Christmas Day long ago -- the day his family finally began to realize that something had gone terribly wrong with his grandfather.
Lorado Hughes had always loved to build elaborate model sailing ships but was having trouble helping Pierce's niece with a ship she had received for Christmas.
''He couldn't begin to figure out how to assemble what was essentially a child's toy,'' Pierce says.
That was one of the first signs that Hughes had Alzheimer's disease, a progressive and incurable brain disease that afflicts 4 million people today in the USA.
If scientists don't find a way to stop the disease, that number will mushroom to as many as 16 million by the middle of this century, says Sheldon Goldberg, president of the Alzheimer's Association. The organization is hosting a fundraising gala tonight in Washington, D.C.
''We have to fight this,'' says Pierce, who will be the master of ceremonies at the event. ''If we don't succeed in getting people to focus on this now, we'll lose millions of people.''
First lady Laura Bush, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-N.Y., and former first lady Rosalynn Carter are just a few of the guests scheduled to attend the event, which the Alzheimer's Association hopes will raise roughly $900,000 to help pay for research to find better therapies.
Drugs on the market today ease but can't stop the relentless brain damage that leads to memory loss, confusion and the inability to perform routine tasks.
Researchers hope to find new drugs that would delay the disease -- perhaps long enough to forestall the most serious symptoms, Goldberg says.
Pierce, 44, knows the emotional toll of watching someone you love descend further into Alzheimer's, a disease that can take up to 10 years to decimate the brain.
''The last time I saw my grandfather, he was in a nursing home strapped to a chair staring blankly at pictures in a magazine,'' Pierce says. His grandfather died at age 86, according to news accounts.
Pierce's father, George, also developed the disease and died of pneumonia in 1998 at age 88, before the disease had fully ravaged his brain. Pierce now says the timing of his father's death was a blessing because his father was still aware of his surroundings and could still recognize family members. That gave Pierce and other family members a chance to say goodbye.
A Gallup poll commissioned by the Alzheimer's Association found that one in 10 Americans had a family member who had the disease. Most of them live at home, where friends and family provide most of their care.
But that 24-hour-a-day responsibility can take a terrible toll on caregivers.
Pierce says his grandmother cared for his grandfather for many years at home, but the difficulty of that job ultimately damaged her own health. She died of a stroke a few years before her husband died.
Pierce calls the stress on caregivers ''the collateral damage in the war on Alzheimer's.'' He urges caregivers to get support from friends, other family members and the Alzheimer's Association.
''This is an impossible disease to face alone.''
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