Alzheimer’s Outreach Misses Many Minorities

Although former President Ronald Reagan’s recent announcement that he has Alzheimer’s is expected to heighten public awareness of the disease, a San Diego State University researcher told a medical conference here Friday that little is now being done to reach and help the disease’s minority victims.

“We have a phrase that Alzheimer’s is an equal opportunity disease,” said Ramon Valle, a genealogy instructor in San Diego State’s School of Social Work. “Yet, most of the multicultural outreach is in its infancy.”

Part of the problem is a lack of adequate funding, said Valle, who spoke to more than 200 people at the Orange County Alzheimer’s Assn. annual conference. Volunteer Alzheimer’s groups, such as Orange County’s, end up translating English materials into Spanish, Vietnamese, Korean and other languages, Valle said. Beyond that, resources are limited.

Valle also warned the audience that Tuesday’s passage of Proposition 187 could have an impact on Alzheimer’s patients in the Spanish-speaking community.

While a Superior Court in San Francisco has temporarily blocked the measure’s implementation, Valle said the proposition may make it even harder to reach and help older immigrants who have lived in the United States for long periods, but never became legal residents.

“You have to understand that a family may be here legally, but they have mothers and fathers or grandfathers who just never got proper immigration documents,” Valle said. “And some of these families may think that Alzheimer’s outreach people, because of the questions we ask about family history, are enforcing (Proposition) 187.”

When Reagan announced he had Alzheimer’s disease, the Los Angeles Alzheimer’s chapter logged 30,000 telephone calls, conference organizers said. In Orange County, “our phones were ringing off the hook,” said Linda Scheck, associate director for the Orange County Alzheimer’s Assn.

Yet the announcement failed to trigger similar reaction from the Spanish-speaking community, said Sonia P. Garcia, executive director for the Orange Adult Day Services Center in Orange, and a volunteer member of the local chapter’s Multi-Ethnic Committee Advisory Board.

“I answer all the phones when inquiries come into the chapter in Spanish,” Garcia said. “And we’ve had no one asking about Alzheimer’s in the wake of President Reagan’s announcement. I just don’t think President Reagan was a figure the Latino community could identify with.”

Alzheimer’s is believed to impact about 10% of the general population. But the fact of the matter is “no real data exists for Latinos or other minority communities,” Valle said after his speech on “Multi-Cultural Outreach: Preparing for California’s Future.”

“With Alzheimer’s,” Valle said, “the response of the families is unique in a cultural way. But under the microscope, the brain looks the same with respect to the neurological destruction.”

Garcia said the 15-member Orange County advisory board was formed a year ago and includes residents of the Korean, Vietnamese, Cambodian and Chinese communities. They have spent the past 12 months translating English materials into different languages. Nonwhites represent 35% of the county’s total population of 2.4 million, according to the 1990 Census.

The problem has been trying to come up with funds to help nonwhite patients, as well as a list of physicians and medical care providers who speak different languages and are willing to help them, Garcia said.