There are more than 110,000 living with Alzheimer’s disease in our state and more than 348,000 family members and friends acting as unpaid caregivers.

Fellow Washingtonians who joined the more than 1,200 attendees at the Alzheimer’s Impact Movement Advocacy Forum in Washington, D.C., said Congress was listening to their explanation of the burden that places on our state and nation.

This advocacy is important to me. As someone who has had a family member with dementia and as support group facilitator of caregivers of those with dementia, I have seen the heavy burden that families carry.

Legislators were asked to increase funding for Alzheimer’s disease research at the National Institutes of Health, as well as fund implementation of the Building Our Largest Dementia (BOLD) Infrastructure for Alzheimer’s Act, which Congress passed into law last year.

Shockingly only 1 percent of Medicare beneficiaries with dementia have received a personal care plan available to them since 2017. Advocates asked members of Congress to co-sponsor the Improving HOPE for Alzheimer’s Act, legislation that will give doctors information about how to develop a plan for each of their patients. Planning is vital to helping patients, families and the community to move forward in the best way possible.

Alzheimer’s is the sixth-leading cause of death in the country and ranks as America’s most expensive disease, which costs surpassing $290 billion in 2019. It is only through adequate funding and enacting reforms that we can meet the goal to prevent and effectively treat Alzheimer’s by 2025.

Please join me in urging Rep. Derek Kilmer to continue to invest in policies that address this national public crisis.

Karen Scott, Bremerton

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