MCGREGOR, Texas (KXXV) \u2014 Texas lawmakers are looking to combat one of the nation\u2019s leading causes of death through a propositions current on voting ballots.<\/p>\n
Watch the full story here: <\/p>\n
Billions on the ballot to help Texas lead in dementia, Alzheimer’s research<\/p>\n
Melody Lee of McGregor opened with 25 News’ Bobby Poitevint to share her family\u2019s story \u2014 her mother’s story \u2014 of living with Alzheimer\u2019s.<\/p>\n
The deadly disease claimed parts of her mother’s memory but still left some special moments and loved ones names right where they\u2019ve always been.<\/p>\n
Lee recalls sharing exciting news about family members with her mother one day. While not being able to vocalize her thoughts, Melody believes her mother knew what Melody was saying. <\/p>\n
\u201cI really believe she did hear me. Why else was she squeezing my hand” Lee said. <\/p>\n
Lee recalls seeing some of the first signs something wasn\u2019t right with her mother’s memory. <\/p>\n
\u201cDaddy called one day to see if I wanted to talk to mom and he hands her the phone, I could hear her telling him I can\u2019t hear anything and he said Margie it\u2019s because you have the phone upside down and you think about it and something as simple as that – it can tear you apart” said Lee. <\/p>\n
Lee’s mom lived for a few years after being diagnosed but passed away in 2011<\/p>\n
Lee and her daughter have spent years raising awareness all across the country about the disease and advocating for public policy which now includes advocating for Proposition 14.<\/p>\n
Alzheimer\u2019s Association President & CEO Joanne Pike spoke to Bobby and said: \u201cProposition 14 is really an opportunity for Texas to take on Alzheimer\u2019s and dementia. Right now, we have over 460,000 Texans over the age of 65 who are living with Alzheimer\u2019s and that means there\u2019s over 1.1 million family caregivers who are also caring for someone with Alzheimer\u2019s or another form of dementia.\u201d<\/p>\n
Proposition 14 allows for $3 billion from state surplus to create the Dementia Prevention and Research Institute of Texas to study dementia, Alzheimer\u2019s, Parkinson\u2019s disease and other brain related conditions and if passed the institute would receive 300 million annually from the state.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s received bipartisan support and is a legislative priority of Texas Lt. Governor Dan Patrick.<\/p>\n
One of the goals of Proposition 14 is to attract leading doctors and physicians from all over to the lone star state.<\/p>\n
The fund and institute are modeled after the state\u2019s Cancer Research and Prevention Institute, which has become the country\u2019s second largest funder of cancer research.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have seen it work and we have seen the results,\u201d Pike said.<\/p>\n
For Lee, she\u2019ll continue to bring awareness to the disease in anyway possible including being a Texas ambassador for the Alzheimer\u2019s Association – she’s wearing purple proudly for her mother and millions of others.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt think it absolutely has to be passed,\u201d Lee said.<\/p>\n
Follow Bobby on social media!<\/p>\n
More stories from Bobby Poitevint<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"MCGREGOR, Texas (KXXV) \u2014 Texas lawmakers are looking to combat one of the nation\u2019s leading causes of death…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":16388,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[12038,13098,13099,27,8897,13100,29,28],"class_list":["post-16387","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-texas","tag-alzheimers","tag-alzheimers-research","tag-mcgregor","tag-texas","tag-texas-election","tag-texas-election-proposition-14","tag-texas-headlines","tag-texas-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16387","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16387"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16387\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16388"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16387"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16387"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16387"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}