Programs Offer Insight, Help & Hope
UNC-TV Focuses on Alzheimer's Disease
Beginning at 8 PM, Wednesday, January 21

Fifteen year ago there were approximately 500,000 Americans with Alzheimer's disease. Today there are 10 times as many-almost five million-and the baby boomer generation may be a ticking time bomb. In North Carolina it's estimated that nearly 40,000 people have the disease-and that number is projected to more than double in the next five to seven years. With each passing year, as the first boomers approach the age of 65, America moves closer to the brink of an epidemic. While recent advances in medical research show exciting progress, effective therapies to combat the disease are still out of reach.

Wednesday, January 21, at 8 PM, UNC-TV will present a groundbreaking evening of programming offering insight, context, help and hope to those affected by Alzheimer's Disease. The evening begins with Focus On.Alzheimer's in North Carolina hosted by UNC-TV's Christine Rogers and broadcast from Duke University's Joseph and Kathleen Bryan Alzheimer's Disease Research Center, one of 27 Alzheimer's research centers in the country. The one-hour broadcast will be a live call-in show featuring a panel of experts, including:

• Dr. Donald Schmechell, director of the Duke Alzheimer's Disease Research Center,
• Dr. Kathleen Welch-Bohmer, associate professor, Duke Departments of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences,
• Steve Morton, director at Southern Assisted Living, the largest provider agency in North Carolina caring for people with Alzheimer's Disease, and
• Bob Dunlap, executive director of the Western North Carolina Alzheimer's Association.

The program will offer resources and address challenges in battling the disease, statewide preparedness for handling anticipated increases in Alzheimer's patients and cutting-edge research underway in North Carolina to help battle the disease.

At 9 PM, The Forgetting: A Portrait of Alzheimer's explores this frightening disease, the human toll it takes on patients and caregivers, and the latest research in the race to find a cure. In examining this looming social and economic crisis, The Forgetting focuses on stories of families whose lives have been steadily ravaged by Alzheimer's. "Like so many coping with this tragedy, the families who share their stories in The Forgetting all have one major motivation in common-they want to let other people facing similar situations know that they are not alone, that there is help and that they too can find the strength to face a tragedy like Alzheimer's with dignity and grace," says award-winning producer and director Elizabeth Arledge.

The follow-up program, Alzheimer's:  The Help You Need, hosted by award-winning actor David Hyde Pierce (Frasier), brings together a panel of experts to provide authoritative answers to commonly asked questions and directs viewers to organizations and resources offering help and support. Pierce, who watched both his father and grandfather suffer with Alzheimer's knows firsthand the challenges of dealing with the disease and the sense of personal vulnerability. "With each year that passes, my fear grows-my fear that the disease process that destroyed their memories, and ultimately their lives, has begun developing in my own brain. My fear grows not just for myself, but also for my generation-the 14 million baby boomers who will get Alzheimer's if we don't find a way to beat this dreadful disease."

UNC-TV is North Carolina's member-supported, 11-station, statewide television network, committed to using telecommunications wisely and imaginatively to inform, educate, and enrich all North Carolinians.

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