Alzheimer's Association Virginia Advocacy Day at General Assembly 1/30

RICHMOND, JANUARY 16, 2025 – Close to 100 Alzheimer’s Association advocates will travel to Richmond to meet with state legislators on Thursday, January 30 for Advocacy Day at the Virginia General Assembly and to advocate for the over 165,000 Virginia residents with Alzheimer’s and their 324,000 caregivers.

“The annual Alzheimer’s Association Advocacy Day turns Alzheimer’s statistics into actual people who are impacted by Alzheimer’s disease and other dementias,” said Lissa Greenlee, Executive Director, Alzheimer’s Association Greater Richmond and Central and Western Virginia Chapters. “It is their personal stories that will remain with legislators as they make decisions on public health policy.”

There are three key pieces of legislation that the State Champions will be asking their legislators to support:

• DEMENTIA SUPPORT PROGRAM (RAFT)
  Advocates will urge Virginia lawmakers to fund the replication of the Regional Older Adults Facility Team’s Dementia Support Program (RAFT), started in Northern Virginia, to other parts of the Commonwealth. The program supports people living with Alzheimer’s and other dementias who are being cared for in their homes or in facilities, aimed at preventing expensive and often traumatic psychiatric hospitalizations. The funding would provide training to paid and unpaid caregivers.
  
  
• DEMENTIA CARE NAVIGATION Advocates will ask lawmakers to expand the Dementia Care Navigation program into the Roanoke and Richmond regions. The current reach of the program is inadequate to meet existing needs of caregivers for people living with Alzheimer’s. In addition to providing care navigation services for several hundred families, the dementia care navigators would serve as subject matter experts to provide dementia-capability training to Area Agency on Aging (AAA) and partner agency staff, community education and screening, and support for local dementia-friendly initiatives.
  
  
• VIRGINIA MEMORY PROJECT Attendees will also ask lawmakers to provide funds for the Virginia Memory Project (VMP), a statewide data registry specifically focused on quantifying the impact of brain health and neurodegenerative disorders in the Commonwealth. Housed within the Virginia Center on Aging at VCU and operated in close partnership with the Virginia Department of Health, the VMP collects and cultivates data about caregiving, neurodegenerative disorders, therapeutics, and conditions associated with brain health. In addition to the data collection, the VMP has a secure resource and education hub, which links enrollees with appropriate regional support.

Register to attend the Alzheimer’s Association’s Virginia Advocacy Day.

Training will be provided to attendees prior to January 30.

● January 22, 3:00 pm

● January 23, 9:00 am, 12:00 pm and 6:00 pm

● January 24, 9:00 am, 11:30 am and 4:00 pm

● January 27, 9:00 am, 12:00 pm and 6:00 pm

● January 28, 10:00 am and 2:00 pm

● January 29, 12:00 pm

Google Meeting info:

Video call link: Google Meet Link

Or dial: ‪(US) +1 567-250-3071 PIN: ‪621 282 960#