• E-mail
• Print
• Comment
• Font Size
• Digg
• del.icio.us
• Discuss article

Center to Aid Latinos-Alzheimer's Study: UCC Expansion Also to Improve Services for Seniors

Posted on: Tuesday, 13 June 2006, 03:00 CDT

By Georgia Pabst, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

Jun. 13--The United Community Center begins construction today on a $2.9 million expansion of its elderly day center designed not only to improve services but to accommodate research on dealing with dementia and Alzheimer's disease in the nation's rapidly growing and aging Latino population.

The 11,000-square-foot, second-story addition to the center, 1028 S. 9th St., will be renamed the Latino Geriatric Center and operate in collaboration with the Medical College of Wisconsin, the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health in Madison and the Alzheimer's Association of Southeastern Wisconsin.

It will allow 70 seniors to be served daily, double the current number, said Ricardo Diaz, UCC executive director. The program now provides activities, meals and other programs and services that are bilingual and culturally sensitive. The new center will offer that and more, he said.

Tom Hlavacek, executive director of the Alzheimer's Association, said the new geriatric center will provide information on Alzheimer's in a high-risk population that's not been closely studied and monitored before.

"Research shows that it appears seven years earlier in Hispanics than in Caucasians, so they live with it for a longer period of time," he said.

Hispanics are the largest minority population in the nation. A 2004 report by the Alzheimer's Association showed Hispanics will increase from 5% to 16% of the total elderly population by 2050 . Life expectancy will increase to age 87 by 2050, surpassing all other ethnic groups in the United States, the study says.

But Hlavacek said diagnosing Alzheimer's isn't easy, and in the Latino community there are extra barriers of language, culture, trust and access to health services.

Through the geriatric center, association employees will work on additional community education and outreach, he said.

"This will be the only place like it in the Midwest, and it could be a national model for the Latino population, which is extremely underserved and faces tremendous barriers to service," he said.

Mark Sager, professor at the UW medical school and director of the Wisconsin Alzheimer's Institute, has been doing a 20-year study with adult children of those who have Alzheimer's to try to gain a better understanding of the risk factors involved, the process of the disease and how risks can be modified. To date, about 900 people from around the state are involved in the project, but most are white non-Hispanics, he said.

Subjects are tested every four years and asked a series of questions to test changes in cognition and function. The first wave of testing has been completed. He said testing materials are being developed in Spanish.

"To the best of our knowledge, this will be the only study in the world to focus studies on adult children of Hispanics with Alzheimer's," he said.

Diana R. Kerwin, assistant professor of the Medical College of Wisconsin in Wauwatosa, said she and other doctors from the memory disorders clinic will work with the physicians of those at the geriatric center on diagnosis and treatment plans and serve as consultants.

The design of the center will look like a plaza in a Latin American city, said Diaz. There will be three distinct "homes" in the center, each with a balcony and a fountain in the middle to provide stimulation and memories of cities in Mexico or Puerto Rico, where many who attend the center once lived, he said.

Users say they are eager to move into the new center.

Felecita Medina, 75, who has diabetes, considers the center her second home. She likes the activities -- playing dominoes, painting, singing, dancing and exercising.

"We are all friends here, and when you come you get a hug and a kiss, and everyone treats you so well," she said. "We celebrate birthdays and holidays. And you can get your blood pressure checked, or physical therapy if you need it," she said.

Medina, who lives with her daughter, said she would just sit and watch TV all day without the center because in the morning everyone in the house leaves for work or school.

As part of the project, the UCC also plans to expand its 3-year-old kindergarten to accommodate 60 students. Diaz said that $600,000 project will be open in fall 2007.

-----

Copyright (c) 2006, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News.

For reprints, email tmsreprints@permissionsgroup.com, call 800-374-7985 or 847-635-6550, send a fax to 847-635-6968, or write to The Permissions Group Inc., 1247 Milwaukee Ave., Suite 303, Glenview, IL 60025, USA.

Source: The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

More News in this Category