AFTD

Today, my grandfather presented me with a shirt on behalf of the AFTD as a “thank you” for volunteer work I have recently done with them. The Association for Frontotemporal Dementias provides accurate information, compassion, and hope when lives are touched by Frontotemporal dementias, a cluster of progressive diseases that affect the regions of the brain that control personality, behavior, language, and decision-making. I lost my grandmother, Mary McKee, known to myself and my cousins as “Mimi”, to Pick’s Disease, one of the diseases in this cluster.

A few months ago, I was honored to speak before over 1,000 people at a fundraiser called “Scoot for Scooter” about how the disease affected my own family and encouraged people to donate to fund research for these diseases (over $25,000 was raised at this event to help cure the disease!) Though many other children and teens deal with the loss of a grandparent, losing a grandparent to a disease like Pick’s Disease is an even greater hardship as it causes a slow deterioration of the affected person’s personality, memory, even speaking skills, and eventually other skills and functions necessary to survive.

I lost my Mimi long before she physically passed away and I hope that the AFTD, myself, and countless others who have been touched by these diseases can continue to band together to raise awareness and money to fund research so that, one day, no children will have to watch their beloved grandparent slowly fade away as I did.

For more information go to http://www.ftd-picks.org/

Juliana McKee