Alzheimer's Club

JEFFERSON - The Wisconsin Department of Health and Family Services announced today it is awarding a $59,959 grant to Jefferson County for a project that will promote early identification of Alzheimer's disease and other forms of dementia.

According to Jefferson County Aging/Long Term Support Supervisor Sue Torum, the grant could not have come at a better time. She said the aging population here is growing at a tremendous rate and Alzheimer's disease could one day reach epidemic proportions.

The state's Health and Family Services Secretary Helene Nelson is scheduled to visit Jefferson this afternoon to present the grant to Torum and others at Countryside Home's chapel.

"Early identification of conditions means individuals and families can get the treatment and help they need," Nelson said. "We commend Jefferson County for its vision and work on a Memory Care Connections project to coordinate diagnosis, treatment, information and services to families."

The Jefferson County Human Service Department project is one of four initiatives that will receive grants from the state. Each project is a partnership of medical providers that have formed dementia diagnostic clinics, county offices for aging and long-term support, local providers of dementia care, and the Alzheimer's Association. According to Nelson, the goal is to make it easier for persons with early stage dementia to get a full range of information and assistance.

The state will also award grants to Rock County and to two joint projects - one in Door and Kewaunee counties, and another among Dunn, Chippewa, Barron and Eau Claire counties. These one-year grants are renewable for three years.

The state department earned the federal funds it is providing to Jefferson County in a competitive nationwide process from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Administration on Aging.


Memory Care Connections projects are operating in partnership with the Wisconsin Alzheimer's Institute at the University of Wisconsin Medical School. The Institute provides best practice training and current research information to encourage participation in the project by primary care physicians. Memory Care Connections provides nurses and social workers to organize services and caregiver supports.

According to Torum, the grant money that is coming from the state is the total amount requested by the county in its grant application. She said $39,959 will be put toward staffing - which will be the hiring of a project coordinator. The remaining $20,000 will go toward respite services for caregivers.

"This can be extended up to three years at the same rate of annual funding if we fulfill our contractual obligations," Torum said.

Torum said the project coordinator will be hired through the Alzheimer's Association of Southeastern Wisconsin's chapter in coordination with the county. She said the job may be advertised as early as next week in newspapers from Madison to Milwaukee.

Torum said 1,600 people in Jefferson County potentially have dementia at the present time.

"We have more than 12,000 elderly people living in the county and that is more than 10 percent of the 72,000 person population," she said, adding the number of elderly in the county continues to grow as baby boomers approach their senior years.

Torum said that, currently, people with Alzheimer's disease or other dementia are served through several programs. One of these is the Community Options Program. Another is the Medicaid Waiver Program, with an additional one being Alzheimer's Family Caregivers Support Program.

"All those programs provide services and funding to help maintain people with dementia and they are intended to allow these people to continue to stay in their own homes - that is how we do it now," she said, adding that persons interested in being served by those programs should call the county at 674-8139.

With the addition of the grant money this week, Torum said the county's new project coordinator can be hired to be a "highly visible person in Jefferson County and the surrounding communities."

"These services will not be limited to the boundaries of Jefferson County," she said. "We could have restricted it, but we wanted to extend it ... This grant came along at a great time to allow us to get busy on a diagnostic program for early dementia."

Torum said the public will see quite a bit of the project coordinator in the coming year.

"That person will be out in the field at senior centers, senior meal facilities, apartment buildings, and this person will go to any community group that is interested in dementia and Alzheimer's disease," she said. "The coordinator will be able to help lay people spot the symptoms to allow for the delay of the progression of the illness."

The Wisconsin Alzheimer's Institute, a center within the University of Wisconsin Medical School, will be training the project coordinator on using something called the "60-Second Verbal Fluency Memory Screening, which is a tool to help spot dementia.

Torum said the grant goes a long way toward opening up the world of better diagnosis of dementia in the Jefferson County area.

"This grant has given us the opportunity to really pay attention to Alzheimer's and its affects on individuals and their caregivers and really educate the general public on this illness, because it is astounding the impact it has on the community," Torum said. "That is why this grant is so important. With the number of older people growing at such an alarming rate, we have to be prepared to deal with Alzheimer's because it could become an epidemic."

Source: Steve Sharp. News: County gets Alzheimer's grant. Watertown Daily Times - Watertown,WI,USA [FullText]