According to the World Health Organization, currently more than 55 million people (about twice the population of Texas) worldwide have dementia. That figure increases by another 10 million annually.
Dementia is currently the 7th leading cause of death and one of the major causes of disability and dependency among older people globally. A traveling photo exhibit, public reception and photo walk fundraiser this week by a graduate of Pittsburgh State University, highlighting perspectives and insights of individuals and families impacted by Dementia.
Elizabeth Spencer graduated with a Master of Communications from PSU in 2015, she is now an assistant professor at the University of Kentucky, where she is leading a project focused on the disease.
She joined us this week on the Crimson and Gold connection.
FRED - So first off, tell us about the exhibit, the title, and why you choose to highlight dementia.
ELIZABETH - We are showing some photos that were initially exhibited at the University of Kentucky.
Photographs that were taken by UK students and this is select 31 images from a collection of almost 1700 images that were submitted.
We selected the images that were most visually impactful and then also students when they submitted their photographs, they wrote a caption about why that photo represents the experience of dementia or Alzheimer's for them.
This exhibition features those same photographs.
And we also thought we would invite people to participate in a fundraiser for the Alzheimer's Association, where they take photographs on photo walk and that we will exhibit those as well, probably just with a projector, but we're excited to see some different community voices here in Pittsburg.
I also wanted really to highlight and raise awareness of the impact of this disease to families and multiple generations of people. S
o, I worked with a few research assistants, undergraduate students, strategic communication majors, which is the Department I teach in at UK, and two research assistants, Kennedy Beam and Ashley Fisher, they just graduated in May and so they helped me.
I mean, there's some initial automatically some images had to be ruled out that maybe didn't fit what we were asking for specifically.
And then yeah, it took a long time to really look through and evaluate which ones were most visually impactful, whether that's. just through the context of what they shared or also like I mentioned, maybe how the caption or the information that the person shared about the picture, how that tied into the message that we felt was spoke the loudest, I guess.
FRED - I feel like the topic of dementia, the barriers have really come down here in the last couple of decades to talk. There's somebody that comes to my mind right away as my grandmother, she had to mention in her final years.
And of course, I remember her as a vibrant grandmother full of life and so many meals, she cooked, but I have those last couple of years where she was 1% of herself, you know, so I think exhibits like this, I don't need to know the whole person's story can look at that photo and just and just think of the decreased quality of life and what they struggled through.
ELIZABETH - My mother passed away with early Alzheimer's, Early onset Alzheimer's disease, so that was really been the passion for what I studied and pursued here at Pitt State during my Master's program and then during my PhD. now the research that I do while I teach and UK.
FRED - Yeah, I was going to ask. You if there was someone if your life that had Alzheimer's.
It’s makes me sad. I think he can hear that in my voice because she passed away, although a handful of years ago now.
I still have so many decades of great memories with her. And just too be completely honest with you it's just mesmerizing.
Your mother and my grandmother or countless other people, as in this conversation, how they can go from fully functioning adult to this shell of a person, unfortunately.
ELIZABETH - You know what has intrigued me, I grew up near here, actually, in Diamond, MO was where I grew up. When I was trying to care for my mother in her final years, we really had trouble finding, accessing resources for us as a family that was navigating this.
And then just as a creative professional and communication professional and academic scholarly researcher. And that's the topic of what I studied as well. Like how do we as creative individuals or even just individuals, how can we process this experience?
Kind of express what this is like.
Our experience is, you know, seeing individuals that have that are going through that and then you know, just as a family, how do we navigate that and maintain our family relationships as we get through this. And then even beyond like their legacy, you know?
FRED - You highlight a couple of things. The access to healthcare here in rural America, which is ongoing, whether it's in deep Southwest, Missouri or Southeast Kansas. You know, especially specialized care for dementia or Alzheimer's.
I'm from, from near Los Angeles, and that care was probably more accessible to my family than people here in the Four States. What special barriers or something that you had to do for your mother being from Seneca, is that where she lived her final years. I'm sorry, Diamond, (MO)
ELIZABETH - Diamond, and then Carthage is where we found care well, part of it was. We didn't realize actually, we weren't connected with the Alzheimer's Association, which they are just the leading resource for individuals and families that are going through that.
And that was, you know, we weren't aware of even the resource is accessible even online.
You know what I'm saying? Like, like now. And of course, I'm kind of immersed in that. In that world and having a little bit more of an understanding of that, but a lot of information and resources is available now online or even access to a 24 hour care.
I mean, I didn't realize that they have a 24-hour 365 days telephone line you can call if you have immediate urgent questions about this experience.
So, we were on one hand trying to understand we didn't know what levels of care and options were there were out there for.
Or even then, what resources were there for us as a family to kind of talk through some of this?
So we needed to find options for in home care and then ultimately, care for her as long as we could at home and then had to make decisions as far as how do we transition her into a more structured and long term care facility and there's so many levels of that that we weren't aware of.
FRED - Elizabeth Spencer graduated with a Master of Arts and Communication in 2015 from Pittsburgh State.
She is now an assistant professor at the University of Kentucky, where she is leading a project focused on dementia.
