Share this pageWoodbury, MN - Citizens Oppose an Alzheimer's Facility!
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- Published on Tuesday, 27 April 2010 20:59
- Written by Stanton O. Berg
Story by Jon Tevlin in the Minneapolis Star-Tribune for Tuesday 27 April 2010 tells how citizens oppose the building of an Alzheimer's care facility in Stonemill Farms addition of Woodbury. Headline reads: "Vexing Undercurrent Wells up in Woodbury".
The reasons given for the objection are at best, outrageous and ignorant.
Examples are: "are not a good fit', "scare the kids" and "drive down real estate prices"....one lady suggested that people "with brain damage probably led lives of daring and danger which might return...They don't have the fear, the healthy fear that the rest of us have"...a man opposed it "if there were one-tenth of one percent chance that anything could happen to a kid." and "Some of whom can get belligerent or aggressive when they are confused." There were concerns that "Their Children might be Attacked".
This lack of common sense and understanding of Alzheimer's disease and the victims of Alzheimer's is appalling and the level of ignorance is most astounding. This suggests certain people in Woodbury have the intelligence or education of an Amoeba. Such comments are insulting to Alzheimer's victims and their families who must struggle daily with the heartaches of this disease.
Alzheimer's residents in Alzheimer's facilities are not out roaming the neighborhood. If there is anyone that is safe with an Alzheimer's victim it is a child. Most Alzheimer's victims love children. Very few are aggressive and those who are, show this demeanor to the caregivers who are attempting to make some change in the activities of the victim that they do not like. Most are quiet and gentle.
It is this high level of ignorance that suggests the reason that while Alzheimer's is the 5th leading cause of death in the United States, the funding for research is abysmally low. Alzheimer's research gets a small fraction of the funding that AIDS receives and AIDS is not even one of the 15 leading causes of death!
(Submitted as a letter to the Editor of the Minneapolis Star-Tribune 4/27/2010.)