WASHINGTON (FinalCall.com)�Angie Smith was a vibrant woman who loved her family. She was a retired beautician who had outlived two of her children. Slowly and painfully she started to forget faces and withdraw.

"At first, I didn�t pick it up," said her granddaughter, Baqiya Adam, who was her caretaker. "I just thought she was having difficulty remembering things, but over time it got worse. She couldn�t remember her great grandchildren."

Mrs. Smith was later diagnosed with Alzheimer�s disease, a quiet invasion that appears as just the symptoms of old age but really is a silent epidemic in the Black community.

Recent studies show that Alzheimer�s disease seems to be more prevalent among Blacks with estimates ranging from as low as 14 percent to almost 100 percent higher than the disease�s prevalence among Whites, according to the Alzheimer�s Association.

"Alzheimer�s disease is a �silent epidemic� that has slowly invaded the African American community before most of us were even aware of its symptoms and its impact. These studies are sending us a clear wake-up call," said Orien Reid, chair of the Alzheimer�s Association board of directors.

"Now, the epidemic has reached crisis proportions.  We must mobilize all of the resources we can find to get it under control before it overwhelms us," she said.

For Mrs. Smith, diagnosis came when her doctor asked her some basic questions, which required her to use short and long-term memory.

"The questions about her past, she breezed right through," said Mrs. Adam, "but when it came to recent events, she was lost and she knew it. Her face was pained because she couldn�t remember something as simple as what she ate yesterday but she could tell you things 20 and 30 years ago."

The disease initially affects the short-term memory and without proper education most people attribute it to just getting old.

"We don�t recognize the symptoms which delays the necessary care and medication to delay the onset of the disease," said Mrs. Reid. "People should look for changes in personality and the inability to perform daily functions. It doesn�t have to be Alzheimer�s, but it could be. You won�t know until you get a professional diagnosis."

What is Alzheimer�s disease?

Currently, four million Americans have Alzheimer�s. The disease affects the brain, causing loss of memory and personality changes. It could begin as early as 20 years before the symptoms appear. Baby boomers will enter the age of highest risk in about 2020, when the oldest of them approaches age 75.

According to the Alzheimer�s Association:

� The number of Blacks entering age of risk (65 and older) is growing rapidly.

� Age is a key risk factor for Alzheimer�s disease in all racial and ethnic groups. Over 10 percent of all persons over 65, and nearly half of those over 85 have Alzheimer�s disease.

� The number of Blacks age 65 and over will more than double by 2030, from 2.7 million in 1995 to 6.9 million by 2030.

� The number of Blacks age 85 and over is growing almost as rapidly, from 277,000 in 1995 to 638,000 in 2030, and will increase more than fivefold between 1995 and 2050 when it will reach 1.6 million.

Dr. Hugh Hendrie of the Indiana University School of Medicine saw an increasing number of Blacks getting Alzheimer�s and decided to study the risk factors Blacks have for the disease.

"I studied similar groups of elderly Yoruba in Nigeria with elderly African Americans for over 10 years to determine if there were any differences in the rates these two groups get the disease," he said.

The results Dr. Hendrie found were amazing.

"The rate of the disease was 2.5 times higher in African Americans. New cases were also more than twice as many. My results showed that African Americans were getting the disease quicker and more frequently than Africans," Dr. Hendrie told The Final Call. "I was puzzled and wanted to know why," he said.

His research found that the Yoruba had genetic interactions that did not occur in Black Americans.

"We found that this particular gene, APOE genotype, acts differently in particular environments. When this gene is exposed to vascular disease such as hypertension, diabetes and cholesterol, it can lead to Alzheimer�s. These diseases (hypertension, diabetes, etc.) happen less often in the Yoruba but are common in elderly African Americans," said Dr. Hendrie.

When Alzheimer�s strikes

In addition to these genetic factors, there are also environmental factors like diet. The study found that the Yoruba diet was primarily vegetarian with very little meat and lower in fat and calories. On the other hand, Black Americans super size it at fast-food restaurants leading to diets heavy laden with fat and calories.

"These are all things that we can control. We know how to prevent hypertension, diabetes and high cholesterol," explained Dr. Hendrie.

Rose Miller had taken her dad to Jamaica for a well-deserved vacation when she realized her dad had a problem. For the longest she had ignored the questions and concerns of her relatives about her dad�s forgetfulness as well as his changing personality.

"He was 80-years-old and had sent seven children to college. I was his caregiver and he didn�t seem ill to me," explained Ms. Miller.

"While we were in Jamaica, I went to his room to get him for dinner and he wasn�t there. I looked high and low for him but he was nowhere to be found. He was gone for 15 hours. I was panic-stricken. I couldn�t go back home without him."

The next day, the Jamaican police found Mr. Miller coming out of another hotel room.

"I was scared to death. I knew something was wrong after that. He was so embarrassed when he realized that he had been gone for so long," Ms. Miller said.

Wandering is common among those with Alzheimer�s. There is a national registry database for caregivers and their relatives. Each wears a bracelet that identifies them as either someone with Alzheimer�s or a caregiver of someone with Alzheimer�s.

Police can call the number on the bracelet and have the person returned safely. There is a 98 percent return rate for those in the program and education is key to treatment.

"We�re a community that doesn�t reach out much. We generally care for our loved ones at home. We don�t recognize the symptoms and we don�t have access to good medical care. There are 10 warning signs at alz.org or people can call us at 800-272-3900," Ms. Miller said.

The Alzheimer�s Association explains that screening and assessment tools and clinical trials are not designed to address the unique presentation of Alzheimer�s disease in Blacks, so caregivers have to be vigilant about getting the proper care.

Ethnic and cultural bias in current screening and assessment tools is well documented; as a result, Blacks who are evaluated have a much higher rate of false-positive results. At the same time, there is substantial evidence of under-reporting of dementia among Blacks.

Since Blacks tend to either not know what the symptoms are or miss the symptoms, they tend to be diagnosed at a later stage of Alzheimer�s disease�limiting the effectiveness of treatments that depend upon early intervention.

"Alzheimer�s is a living funeral. You lose a little bit of the person daily. It attacks their brain and takes away their personality. Day after day, the person you loved slowly slips away. The more we know, the more we can help," said Mrs. Reid.

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