On Friday, Oct. 23, Loyola Clinical Centers and the Alzheimer’s Foundation of America (AFA) sponsored Raise Your Voice For Care, an event in McGuire Hall featuring several activities, including hearing and cognitive screenings, a panel of Loyola affiliates that have been affected by Alzheimer’s and vendors, such as the AFA information table.
The hearing and cognitive screenings were held on the left side of the divider separating McGuire Hall. The two stations were run by volunteers from Loyola Clinical Center, a mix of speech pathology undergraduates and industry professionals. At the hearing screening table, students placed headphones over their ears and were asked to raise their hands whenever they heard a sound. After each of the ears were tested with one octave, the sound was raised another octave to test how high of notes the students could hear.
Loyola Clinical Center audiology specialist, Brandy Winn, shared how hearing relates to Alzheimer’s disease, “Obviously with age we develop hearing problems, so when someone who is older is diagnosed with Alzheimer’s, it can make the person seem worse than they are. You have to hear information before you can process it. Our job is to help with hearing problems so that people with Alzheimer’s can improve, at least a little bit.”
The cognitive screenings consisted of several different kinds of tests, including memory, where students needed to repeat a series of words the test giver gave them, simple math, and naming the date. Theresa Alexander, one of the speech pathology specialists from the Loyola Clinical Center and a member of the classes of ‘03 and ‘05, commented on how these tests help survey Alzheimer’s and other dementia patients. “If a family member, or the patient themselves, ask for a cognitive screening, we administer them to detect memory loss or cognitive function loss,” she explained. Alexander continued talking about Loyola Clinical Center decision to join the Alzheimer’s event, “This is the first year that we’ve had this program, and I think it’s going to be great to show the students and the larger community what services we provide them.”
This is also the plan for Loyola’s AFA Chapter, a club that started this year in conjunction with the AFA offices of Baltimore. As for the future of Loyola’s AFA Chapter, Patrick Delaney ‘16 said, “We hope to do more events like this on campus, maybe even have a Walk for Alzheimer’s.”
On the other side of the division in McGuire Hall, a panel featuring Loyola alumni, a parent, students,and an affiliate discussed “Alzheimer’s Disease and You”. Each panelist shared stories of family members who have Alzheimer’s. Four of the five panelists were family members, a mother, two daughters, and a son. They each talked about their experiences as their husband and father was diagnosed and lived through his Alzheimer’s. Patrick Kammerer ‘14, sighed as he said, “they’re alive, they exist, but they don’t really know you anymore.” His sister, Katie Kammerer ‘17, one of the founding members of Loyola’s AFA Chapter, described interacting with her father, saying, “After a while, he couldn’t remember who I was…but he never forgot to say ‘I love you.’”
Among the several vendors that were set up outside of McGuire Hall was Josie Di Chiara, the senior vice president of external relations at AFA. She commented that she was excited about the organization’s presence on campus with the new chapter. “What we hope to accomplish on campus through the AFA Loyola Chapter is letting students, faculty, and staff know that there is somewhere to go for information and support, and that’s the Alzheimer’s Foundation of America.”
