The Paid Leave Podcast

Alzheimer's is a Robber in Progress

• The Connecticut Paid Leave Authority • Season 2 • Episode 4

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The United States is an aging nation and Connecticut is an aging state. Living with a disease that usually affects the older population - like Alzheimer's - is tough for the whole family. Caregivers of those with Alzheimer's or other forms of dementia are usually family members who have to learn to navigate from diagnosis through the progression of the disease. CT Paid Leave can help by providing up to 12 weeks of income replacement when a caregiver is away from work to care for their loved one.

Joining in the discussion are two CT Paid Leave advocates from the CT Chapter of the Alzheimer's Association - Carolyn DeRocco, Vice President of Programs and Education, and Christy Kovel, Director of Public Policy.  Carolyn and Christy realize how important the CT Paid Family and Medical Leave Act is for caregivers as well as for individuals who are newly diagnosed with this disease.  In this episode, we delve into what Alzheimer's is, how to diagnose it, preventative measures, treatments, and the new advocacy  work they are doing.

For  more information on Alzheimer's Disease, visit  alz.org/ct
or call their toll free hotline 24 hours 800-272-3900

For more information about CT Paid Leave or to apply for benefits, visit ctpaidleave.org.

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Nancy Barrow:

Hello Connecticut, and welcome to The Paid Leave Podcast. The title basically says it all. I'm Nancy Barrow, and I will be delving into this new state program and how it can help you and your family. This podcast will give you information you should know about Connecticut Paid Leave and maybe just a little bit more Connecticut Paid Leave brings peace of mind to your home, family and workplace. Welcome to The Paid Leave Podcast. My guests today are Carolyn DeRocco, Vice President of Programs and Education, and Christy Kovel, Director of Public Policy and bhhhoth work for the Alzheimer's Association, and it's the Connecticut Chapter. So welcome ladies, so happy to have you both here and to see you.

Christy Kovel:

Thanks for having us.

Carolyn DeRocco:

Yeah, thanks for having us. We're happy to be here.

Nancy Barrow:

Well, it's the sixth leading cause of death in the United States, which I didn't know, and the fifth leading cause of death in people over the age of 65 that is crazy. How many people are affected here in Connecticut.

Christy Kovel:

There's 80,000 people in Connecticut that we estimate that are living with Alzheimer's, or another form of dementia. We are estimating that by 2025 that number is going to go up to 91,000 because age is the biggest risk factor for developing Alzheimer's. And we are an aging nation, and we are an aging state the Northeast in particular, is is aging rapidly, and so because of that, with age being the biggest risk factor, and improved awareness and diagnostics, this is why you're hearing a lot more about Alzheimer's and dementia.

Carolyn DeRocco:

To that point, we have about 143,000 caregivers.So we have, you know, people living with the disease. But then also it affects the caregivers, and we have a pretty high number right in Connecticut, about 143, 000 caregivers. So we'll be speaking about that today, how we can help.

Nancy Barrow:

Yeah, the caregivers is a big component of it. And I think we all know someone who's been affected by, directly or indirectly with Alzheimer's. For me, it was my uncle, Alec. He was an orthopedic surgeon. He was kind, He was compassionate. His patients absolutely loved him. He lived in Pennsylvania, and he was diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease, but it was really weird, because they didn't really know if it was Alzheimer's. So how do they get diagnosed? And how does it actually get to be a diagnosis of Alzheimer's? Because they mentioned dementia, hardening of the arteries and and Alzheimer's. So there's so many different terminologies that were used with my uncle Alec. How does it all get figured out to be Alzheimer's?

Carolyn DeRocco:

Yeah, and I get this question, you know, in all my training, so what's the difference between dementia and Alzheimer's? So let me just clarify. So Dementia is a group of symptoms, and when we think about the symptoms, it's memory loss, it's problems with thinking and reasoning, my executive functioning, you know, ability to plan. It affects personality and judgment. So Dementia is a group of symptoms. Think of it like as an umbrella term. Alzheimer's disease is the most common form, or, I like to think of it as is the disease that is the most common disease causing dementia symptoms. So when we talk from the Alzheimer's Association about Alzheimer's disease and related dementias, these are dementias that are irreversible. So that's very different than someone who may have, you know, trouble with their thyroid condition or B 12 or vitamin deficiencies, and they have these symptoms of dementia, right? So poor memory loss, problems with thinking and reasoning, poor judgment, some personality changes, but they can be treated, and they can go back to baseline, right? If their medications are put under control. So what we're talking about today is dementia. Symptoms most often are caused by Alzheimer's disease, but these are irreversible dementia, right?

Nancy Barrow:

That's really interesting. I didn't know that vitamin deficiencies can actually mimic Alzheimer's. That's fascinating to me.

Carolyn DeRocco:

Absolutely, and that's one of the things we always talk to family members about, you know, you want to make sure you get a good diagnosis and make sure you're ruling out something that's physical, right? So you might want to have a physical workup, have your blood checked, you know, see your doctor to make sure there's nothing else that's causing those dementia symptoms. Again, often we still do here today, someone's getting a diagnosis of dementia, but that's really the symptoms. That's the umbrella term. We encourage our caregivers and our family members and even people living with symptoms of dementia, to ask the doctor, what's causing these dementia symptoms.

Nancy Barrow:

And so do they do blood work up like right away, and so you can find out those vitamin deficiencies.

Carolyn DeRocco:

Yeah, so again, you we would encourage someone to see their primary care physician, right? Hopefully they have a great relationship with their their primary care talk about what they're experiencing. They'll do a physical workup a lot of times, and often follow up with some mini mental testing, maybe a CAT scan or MRI or a PET scan.

Nancy Barrow:

So when someone gets the diagnosis of Alzheimer's, what happens and where do you help? Do you help with the caregiver aspect? Do you help with the patient aspect? What does the Alzheimer's Association of Connecticut do.

Carolyn DeRocco:

Being with you today on this podcast, hopefully we're letting people hear us and know that, first of all, we have a 24 hour helpline, okay, at one 802 72 3900 100 so someone who's concerned about their memory or has been given a diagnosis or the caregiver can call us and the two words, I like to share our education and support. So if somebody is educated about the disease, they understand maybe what are the early signs, and understand this, the progression of the disease. Really important also to get support. So we have caregiver support groups for family members, friends, neighbors, also, we have support groups of the person living with the disease. And I'd love to share I had someone in my group who was diagnosed. It was eight years now, and she said, You know, I was diagnosed, but I'm not dying tomorrow. So how do I learn to live well today with this disease? And we're really encouraging physicians diagnostic centers, if somebody is getting a diagnosis of Alzheimer's disease or another related dementia, to let them know. We have a helpline. There's education. We have online education. We are doing in person. We're happy to be back in person, doing community programs, so really understanding the disease and how we can help both a caregiver and the person living with live their best quality of life. We talk about effective communication strategies. Know how to best have conversations, looking at the person so they can understand your body language and speaking slowly, focusing on one task at a time. And those are really important that can really make a difference. And I'd love to share throughout the podcast some some personal stories of caregivers that have been to a training and have implemented something and it really made a difference in their life.

Nancy Barrow:

I think one of the interesting parts is when that diagnosis comes in, it's not just the patients, it's the whole entire family that gets affected, right? My My cousins, me, we were all very worried about how this was going to progress, and I think is it fair to say that it's different in every patient?

Carolyn DeRocco:

Yeah, so we said that progression can be from like two to 20 years, the average eight to 10, but it depends on the person and other comorbidities that they may have. Lifestyle intervention possibly can make a difference, but absolutely the caregivers need education and training and support. So often, the person living with dementia looks perfectly healthy and the caregiver might forget. This is why they're repeating the same story, and this is why they're asking me the same question over and over. So understanding, I always when I teach, I'll show a picture of the brain and show the atrophy a healthy brain would weigh about three pounds upon the disease progression, it actually shrinks to about a pound and a half. Wow. So when I share that with caregivers in a very sensitive way, it lets them know you know what, this person is not doing this on purpose. There's a reason for these behaviors, or the forgetfulness, or for the lack of judgment.

Nancy Barrow:

I always thought that Alzheimer's was lesions on the brain and from inflammation, is that incorrect?

Carolyn DeRocco:

There are some studies looking at inflammation. What we know is that there's cell death. So the dementia is that we're talking about. So whether it's Alzheimer's disease, dementia with Lewy bodies, frontal, temporal dementia, those areas of the brain, there's actually cell death. So those neurons have died with Alzheimer's specifically, what we know today in research is that there's plaques and tangles that actually are are killing that that neuron or that cell. So there's actually cell death. So if you looked at a picture of a brain, you could see the actual atrophy, and there's certain holes, especially in the hippocampus. With Alzheimer's disease, very often a family might be confused because they say my mom has a wonderful memory. She's talking about her wedding 50 years ago, but then she doesn't remember I just gave her lunch. Right different part of the brain. So that education for families is really key to help them understand why these behaviors and some of the forgetfulness happens.

Nancy Barrow:

I do remember my uncle Alec getting really overwhelmed in large areas when the disease progressed, and he would forget who I was, and my aunt would say, Oh, this is your sister's daughter, you know. And he would be like, oh, right, yeah, it was very interesting to see the progression with him. Do you find that it's more affecting men or women, or is it pretty equal?

Carolyn DeRocco:

We know more women are affected two thirds. Christy, am I correct on that two thirds?

Christy Kovel:

It's because I mean women, women live longer, so we are and there is a higher rate of occurrence in African American and Latinx as well. For some you know, reasons around some other diseases maybe not get diagnosed.

Nancy Barrow:

Are there things that you can do to prevent it?

Carolyn DeRocco:

Well so what we can say is that there's certain things that can lower risk, okay, right, right? So when we talk about lowering risk, we talk about keeping your numbers in check, right? So your weight, your sugar level, your cholesterol, your blood pressure, right? So you want to keep those numbers in check. It's whatever is good for your heart is good for your brain. A lot of people don't realize that your brain is an organ. So how can we keep that that healthy? So we're really trying. We're doing a lot of advocacy work, especially with Department of Public Health, to think to do brain health, right? To think about, how do I keep my brain healthy? Lots of studies looking at preventative studies today, looking at, you know, diet, exercise, Mediterranean diets, and if that can help lower risk. So we can, we really can't say prevention right now. I think the safer word is to say lower risk.

Nancy Barrow:

I did an interview with someone who had had Alzheimer's, and they said that there's the only place in the world that it's low? Well, there's two, like Africa, but also India, and that's where they use a lot of turmeric, or turmeric, however you want to say it, in their food. Have studies been done about turmeric or turmeric in not letting the plaque grow? Or have you heard of any studies about turmeric and turmeric?

Christy Kovel:

Not specifically with turmeric, but what I can share with you is that there's that real correlation, because obviously turmeric is an anti inflammatory. People take it and so there have been studies looking at inflammation in your body and correlation to disease, and we just the Alzheimer's Association. We are the largest private funder of nonprofit research in the world, and we just finished our international conference, and two of the findings in that study, you know, to Carolyn's point one was on processed foods and and a higher risk of developing cognitive decline, and then also for folks who have MCI or mild cognitive impairment, just how beneficial it is just to have mild exercising and body movement in terms of being able to prevent further decline. So we do know there is this enormous interest, not only in just drug therapies, but in lifestyle studies that's happening around the world looking at all kinds of things between diet, exercise, sleep, you know, as we age, in terms of of indicators for, you know, healthier aging, and possibly as a preventative tool.

Nancy Barrow:

That's something that's very interesting, In the correlation with your brain and your your heart is very interesting to me. It's great that you're doing all this research. And I didn't realize that you were Christy, let me understand. So did you say you are the biggest privately funded, yeah, research.\?

Christy Kovel:

So we so we are the we fund, just in Connecticut alone, over $2 million in research, you know, at Yale, at UConn and UConn Health, but nationally, we're funding studies, you know, in all kinds of areas, in drugs, in lifestyle. Right now, the Alzheimer's Association is doing a study called the US pointer study. And this mimics a study that was done back in Finland in 2004 I believe. And what this is, is this is the largest clinical trial for people who are at risk of developing Alzheimer's disease be between the ages, I believe, 60 and 75 and and providing lifestyle interventions to look at lowering risk so participants who qualify can get involved in this trial and have some interventions, whether or not that's, you know, health club membership or diet interventions, that sort of thing, to see if their risk is lowered and it's really and another thing that we're doing in this study is We're really looking at trying to get a broad representation of study participants, because we know that in clinical trials, that hasn't always been the case, not just in Alzheimer's, but in other diseases. And we need, we really need this good data to have good representation about what we can do.

Nancy Barrow:

How big a part does genetics play?

Carolyn DeRocco:

There's what we call a deterministic gene. So this is a gene that determines you will have the disease. It's very low. It's like under point 1% of those living with the disease. So we have that deterministic gene. And a lot of people, if they watched Still Alice, they think the movie that you know there was a deterministic gene there, yep. But we also know there are about 30 or more genes that, again, are related or risk factor genes, looking at APO three and APO four, looking at those genes if you have more or one allele. So there's lots of different studies on that. So again, there's deterministic gene which will determine that you do have this you will get this disease. Again, it's not common, but there are other genetics that we're looking at to say, Are these risk factors or will they increase the chance?

Nancy Barrow:

Right, most of us have had someone that we know or someone in our family affected by Alzheimer's, but even TV or print media have really been, I think, playing a part in letting people know a little bit more about it, like the Glen Campbell story, to really watch him and to see from the family's point of view, right, the caregiver's point of view. For people who may not have had that personally, I think that that really played into that, into the caregiver aspect of it, and how difficult it can be, right?

Carolyn DeRocco:

At the Alzheimer's Association, we're really trying to help eliminate stigma, right? We do know there's a stigma with this disease. I. I could share a story. So I have a group. We call it gap. They named it themselves. They want to give Alzheimer's purpose. These are people living with the disease, and we did a project together. I said, if you had an opportunity to write on a t shirt what it's like to have this disease, or what message do you want the community community to know? And it was really interesting, they wrote like, It's not my fault. I can still do things. Some of them were funny. They said, I need a GPS for my mind. But I think really understanding that this is a disease, like other diseases, and it's not anyone's fault, and they're really trying to do the very best that they can, and some of the behaviors and some of the forgetfulness is absolutely not on purpose, yeah, right. And I think that's really important to help eliminate the stigma, and for people not to be afraid to talk about it. You know, once we talk about it, once caregivers talk about it, they know that they're not alone. Often in my support groups, I have a family member to say, that's happening to you, I didn't realize I thought that was my fault and I was not interacting properly, or I was doing something wrong, and they realize that, you know, they're not alone. And I think that's so important.

Nancy Barrow:

What kind of services do you have for caregivers? What? What are some of the things that you help family members with?

Carolyn DeRocco:

Again, the helpline is there, and the helpline could be it's 24 hours. It could be three in the morning. You want to talk to somebody about your day. We also have, again, educational programs. These are in person. We also have them virtually with on a zoom call with, you know, PowerPoints and videos. And then we also have an online learning that you can watch at any they're free, that you can watch in the privacy of your own home. And again, they talk about, maybe, what are the 10 warning signs? So if somebody is not sure about some of the things that they're experiencing or that their loved one is experiencing, they could watch the 10 warning signs. We have a whole program called Understanding Alzheimer's and dementia. So what is the disease? What's happening again? The effective communication program, and also one of my favorite is understanding and responding to dementia related behaviors. And so again, it's helping the caregiver understand the behavior and then learn some tools to how to best respond to that behavior.

Nancy Barrow:

Right, not to exacerbate the situation and escalate it.

Carolyn DeRocco:

And what a lot of people don't know is we also have programs for the person living with. So we have a whole series that, you know, a whole live well series so the person who's living with can live their best life.

Nancy Barrow:

And what do those include?

Carolyn DeRocco:

So that would include about even just accepting the diagnosis right, discussing who to tell and when they feel comfortable telling the person focusing on strategies and tools in their own life, like maybe, you know, limiting some tasks, doing one thing at a time, maybe changing some of the ways that they used to have family gatherings and making maybe a small gathering right at lunch rather than dinner. So helping the person learn some strategies and tips to just focus better. Even, you know, going out to restaurants, maybe going to a smaller restaurant where it's not as loud.

Nancy Barrow:

You mentioned someone who was 50 with it. What do you consider early onset?

Carolyn DeRocco:

Alzheimer's Sure, so someone who's under the age of 65 we consider it younger onset, right? We say younger onset. We've kind of changed the term to from early onset, because we have, whether you're younger under 65 you have early, middle and late stage, right. Sometimes that terminology got a little confusing, but anyone under the age of 65 would consider younger onset. Again, it's not as common, but we do see people, um, you know, younger than 65 with this disease.

Nancy Barrow:

And one thing that I want to go back to is you said that you have 10 warning signs that family members might be looking for. Can you just give me a few of those warning signs so people who might be listening can say, oh, maybe we should go talk to our doctor.

Carolyn DeRocco:

Sure. So again, memory loss. And when we think about memory loss, this is different than, you know, walking into a room and forgetting what you were going in there for, you know, memory loss, it's really interfering with daily living, right? So we may sometimes. Here's an example. Sometimes you drive on the highway and you start daydreaming a little and you miss the exit. Very different from someone who used to go to work. Cannot find out how to lost directions, how to get there. Very different. Or we can't park our car. We don't remember where we parked our car. Very different from someone not knowing, like, did I drive or did I take the bus? Very different problems with familiar tasks. So somebody who may in my group, like he always wore a suit to work, and one day he came out from the bathroom into his wife, and he said, I don't never had a tie my tie. That was a familiar task that he was no longer able to do so. This is very different than giving somebody a brand new, you know, phone and they don't know how to use it right or so. So it's a familiar task. It's also problems with like thinking and reasoning and planning, so being able to plan your day, following the recipe, right in order. This is also. Something, somebody may have personality changes. There may be some frustration if somebody is not able to do the things that they were able to do. Or, you know, sometimes you'll hear someone say, the appliance is just broken because they can't figure out how to use a coffee pot. So it's just broken. Sometimes we have, you know, the personality changes we might see withdrawal from social activities, because the person maybe loved going to baseball games, but now they just can't follow the game any longer. So they don't go any longer. Anymore. They can't play bingo, so they no longer go. My aunt used to go to church every Sunday religiously, and all sudden she stopped going because she couldn't follow along with the readings and she didn't recognize people. So it's really memory loss problems and thinking, reasoning familiar tasks can be very difficult to do more than one task at a time. So those are some of the warning signs.

Nancy Barrow:

Let me ask you this about Connecticut Paid Leave, and this might be something for Christie, but you know, we give income replacement, up to 12 weeks of income replacement for a caregiver to take care of someone who is seriously ill, and they even mention Alzheimer's in our website. So how much of a difference can this make for the patient who is going through it, and the family the caregiver? Because it's mainly family members who are who are taking care of people. How important is this law?

Christy Kovel:

Well, I think the law is really important. I know that there's, you know, 13 states now I believe that have paid leave. And we were so happy that Connecticut moved forward, you know, the Alzheimer's Association, we were part of the coalition and provided testimony on this. You know when the bill was introduced a few years ago, because we do realize that caregivers really struggle, particularly if they need to, if they have somebody that they're not sure what's going on with them, or they have somebody living in their family household that is younger onset, and they're still trying to work, and they may have children younger at home, so that that's really, really difficult. And so I think being able to have some of this flexibility to put a care plan in place for that person, and, you know, somehow stabilize the household. You know, this disease, the challenge of this disease, to Carolyn's point, is that there's no simple trajectory. It's not like you get the diagnosis and you can have a script that it goes along a certain way. There are stages with the disease, and, you know, increased care needs. And it could be that somebody is taking care of their loved one at home, and things have progressed and it's become too difficult for that person to work, and they need to step aside and have some type of paid leave to address increasing care need also, just to recognize, too, that, you know, women are much more affected, you know, as caregivers, you know, and in terms of having that income stream interrupted, you know, because They they have to, you know, take time out of work to be able to have this opportunity that they are able to have, you know, income while they're addressing this really critical need. It also adds to quality of life for them to be able to provide care for that person and high quality care and actually be there for the person. So I think it is absolutely beneficial. You know, we are really grateful that this and we followed other states in New England, Rhode Island and Massachusetts, that had laws on the books. So we were really happy to see this, this program, you know, passed into law, and you know members of Carolyn's team. You know, when people call our helpline and they're talking to somebody from our team, you know, we, we know that the best thing that you can do for this disease, because we don't have a cure at this time, is to make a plan and to make it an effective strategy, you know, to put together effective strategies and an effective care plan. And most of the time that care plan is done by an informal caregiver, meaning a family member. You know there's care partners in our community that are paid, but to really have that time to be able to lay out the groundwork of how you're going to take care of your loved one so that they can have the most success.

Nancy Barrow:

Are there any laws that you're working on, whether it's locally, with the legislature or nationally, are there any initiatives or any kind of advocacy?

Christy Kovel:

We are, you know, our advocacy efforts, we have a number of both federal and state policy priorities. You know, the biggest on the federal side is research. We have advocated the federal government to really step up, and members of Congress this is a non partisan issue have really responded. So just, you know, a few years back, we were woefully underfunded in research at the National Institutes of Health. We are now just over 3 billion a year for research that NIH is funding researchers. So the Alzheimer's Association we fund, we like to fund, researchers. Who are at the beginning stages of their career. We like to provide that seed money so that they can provide, you know, those large apply for and get those larger grants at NIH. But through our efforts, of our advocates, you know, people who are affected by Alzheimer's disease and care partners have gone to members of Congress and said, you've got to do something about this. Just to compare cancer receives. And I believe the statistic was somewhere between six and 7 billion. So, you know, you look at the numbers that are going to be affected in this country, and already are by Alzheimer's disease, we really need to continue that push for federal research funding on the state level. There's been a number of legislative initiatives. The last piece of legislation that we passed was back in 2019. Was looking at adding dementia training to the curriculum for physicians and APRNs for license renewal. But this past legislative session, we were able to secure additional $1 million for our respite program. So Connecticut has a respite program, which are short term grants for family caregivers to be able to take care of their loved one in the home. And we were able to advocate for additional funding. And one of the things we will be working on in the future is really looking at dementia care coordination at a state level. There's a number of states that have a person who's really looking at Alzheimer's disease. And what we're doing as a state, you know, what services are available? How do people access clinical trials? What do you know, you mentioned the smaller homes like, what is the model for people to live, you know, successfully and independently in the community? What resources will we need going forward as a state? What do communities need so that type of dementia care coordination, and then we are working very closely with the Connecticut Department of Public Health. There was a federal piece of legislation that passed a number of years ago that it's called Bold, which is building our largest dementia infrastructure. And what this does is it provided funding to the CDC to local health departments to look at Alzheimer's disease as a public health issue, not just an issue of aging. So you think about what public health does, and it looks at things like early detection and diagnosis and avoiding preventable hospitalizations and supporting caregivers. So how are people finding out how to get diagnosed? What are the warning signs of Alzheimer's disease, really raising that awareness preventing hospitalizations? And then what are we doing to support caregivers? Yeah, as a state,

Nancy Barrow:

I think that that's such an important issue and and I'm glad that Connecticut Paid Leave is here and it does address the caregivers, because it is an important job.

Carolyn DeRocco:

You know, this disease is physically, emotionally and financially taxing on someone. Oh yeah, and I think often we'll talk to families, and they don't have the time to be educated and to watch, what is this disease about? Watch a video on it they really need, as Christy shared that the idea of planning so is home care. The best option for them is adult day. A best option is going into assisted living or skilled nursing. But they need time to research, to make phone calls. We often will suggest legal and financial planning, so needing time to search for an elder lawyer that specializes in dementia, so that they can protect their assets and the assets of their loved one. So there's so much work in in planning that a caregiver needs to do that this is really a beneficial program, even for that perspective.

Christy Kovel:

It is, and particularly if you think about anyone who's impacted, you know, with younger onset, under the age of 65 and perhaps they were told, or they're just not able to work anymore, right? And they got this diagnosis, and their life is upside down. They may have children in the home, right? They may have a partner in the home, and they need to make a plan, a whole new plan, of how they're going to manage this disease. So it is so beneficial for a family member in that situation to be able to, you know, as Carolyn said, do some research and plan and really have a roadmap ahead so that they can effectively deal with this disease. And we do know too that most of the people who have Alzheimer's disease or other dementia are actually cared for in the home. So we are very grateful for our partners in institutional care, and we know that people may need that as the disease progresses, but the bulk of the care is provided in the home and in the community. You know this is such a non partisan issue. You know policymakers really want to support you know us, they have caregivers who are impacted in their district. Many legislators have a personal connection in their family and so around policy and also, you know, just in terms of the progress they want, they want to be helpful. And I think you know that is why it was time for for paid leave to happen in Connecticut, because it it are. Not only were our sister states. Had that, but they recognize that people need this type of benefit, because there's so many caregivers out there, particularly with Alzheimer's or other dementia and other diseases, that to really support caregivers who are going through something like this is very beneficial.

Nancy Barrow:

Well, please let us know how we can help get the information about Connecticut Paid Leave benefits for caregivers, because I think that's really important. And you know, we're, I'm the engagement manager, and we're very small team that we're trying to get all this information out, and that's why we're doing this podcast, because we really want to help and and any way we can help you guys get the word out and and help caregivers, or even help the patients themselves negotiate their diagnosis and and get some time off for themselves. We really would love to help you any way we can.

Christy Kovel:

We thank you. We absolutely thank you. We know that our job is to support caregivers, and you are, you know, wanting to support caregivers as well. So I think there's, there's a lot of synergy there.

Carolyn DeRocco:

It's all about sharing resources, right? As we work together, more resources are are known for the families and the people living with so thank you for all that you do well.

Nancy Barrow:

Thank you Carolyn and Christy. Thank you so much for the conversation today on Alzheimer's and and Connecticut Paid Leave and how we can help people get their information. How can people get in touch with you guys?

Christy Kovel:

I think the best way is our website, which is Alz.org/ct, to access, you know, either research or if they have information that they're looking for about Alzheimer's disease, or our 24 hour helpline, which is one 800-272- 3900 and that's anytime, day or night.

Nancy Barrow:

Well, thank you both again, and to find out more about Connecticut Paid Leave benefits. Please go to our website at ctpaidleave.org. This has been another edition of The Paid Leave Podcast. Please like and subscribe so you'll be notified about new podcasts that become available. Connecticut Paid Leave is a public act with a personal purpose. I'm Nancy Barrow, and thanks for listening.

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