Page 22 - Flathead Beacon // 7.15.15

NEWS
COVER
Glenn and Helen Mueller. COURTESY PHOTO
family of three daughters, and the even-
tual grandchildren.
They have had a wonderful life
together, Glenn says, spending 50 years in Libby before moving here once her mind started its decline. She was one of the smartest people he’s known, he says multiple times.
eath is an inevitability we face as soon as our lives begin. What’s less certain is everything else
Glenn and Helen Mueller and their three daughters. COURTESY PHOTO
“That’s the one smart thing I did in my ife, was marrying that lady,” Glenn says.
If better treatment for the disease is not available, the Alzheimer’s Associa- tion estimated that by 2050, America will be spending $560 billion on Alzheimer’s treatment through Medicaid and Medi- care, compared to the $153 billion already projected for 2015.
And while money is a huge concern, the real fear lies in knowing as the local community continues to live longer, more neighbors, friends, and family members will have to deal with dementia.
The draft State Plan on Aging for 2016 through 2019, which is still out for pub- lic comment through the Department of Public Health and Human Services, lists Montana’s 65-and-older population as 16.1 percent of the total population in 2014, already a 2 percent increase over 2010, and the state is consistently ranked as one of the oldest in the nation.
Kalispell and the rest of Flathead County are also favorites when it comes to rankings for the best places in the country to retire, and along with the nat- ural beauty, the burgeoning health care industry here is part of the reason why.
With a rapidly aging population comes the health needs of such a group, and dementia is a major factor. A statewide committee, the Montana Alzheimer’s Dementia Work Group, is collecting information on the care needs of com- munities across the wide expanse of Big Sky Country.
Part of the problem, according to Holly Garcia, the study coordinator at the Cen- ter for Translational Research at Billings Clinic and coordinator of the dementia work group, is that Montana is largely made up of rural and frontier counties.
The study, which should be released in time to back up legislative action for the 2017 session, has only produced prelimi- nary data so far, Garcia said, but what the work group has found backs up the idea that more aging Montanans means more dementia and Alzheimer’s, and more resources needed to help.
This means more memory-care facili- ties in more counties. All too often, Gar- cia noted, families must uproot their affected loved one to a new town for these services.
“Ideally, we’d like to keep people in their home communities as much as we
elen and Glenn met in 1950, in Malta. He was a young man from Lewistown working for the U.S.
that I realized he was ‘that man.’ My first impression was certainly accurate and I’m glad I made ‘a sale’ even tho the FHA girls didn’t,” she wrote.
They moved to Libby, where they would settle and raise their three daugh- ters. Glenn remembers a happy life, work- ing for the Forest Service and fostering a love for the outdoors within his girls.
Helen was active in the community and her church, and was an avid quilter, doing all the stitching by hand. She was also very bright and a great cook, Glenn said, and a wonderful mother and wife.
As they aged, the couple began win- tering in Arizona, and would for 20 years before Helen’s problems arose. He didn’t see the dementia at first, Glenn says, but the signs were there. Bouts of forgetful- ness turned serious, like when Helen was not able to find the grocery store located just a block away.
“She went to get some food and couldn’t find it,” Glenn says. “And then she couldn’t find a friend’s apartment that was next door to ours. So I knew that was our last winter in Arizona.”
A doctor in Libby diagnosed Helen with dementia, and Glenn knew it was time to move to Kalispell, despite hav- ing planned on living out their days in Libby. But their small town didn’t have the care facilities Helen needed, and so they moved three years ago.
When they first arrived and Helen was placed in a separate building, she was confused about the separation from her husband. She was also using a walker, and could zip about.
She doesn’t ask about why she lives
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lD
around death, the how and the why and the when of it all. But in all its forms, one of the cruelest ways to lose someone is when it happens and yet their body remains.
Most everyone has a family member or knows a friend who has struggled with dementia; the Alzheimer’s Association estimated that one person is diagnosed with the disease every 67 seconds.
The emotional toll of dementia is pain- ful enough for the families and friends of those affected, but there are other more-concrete costs associated as well.
Dementia is the general term for a “decline in mental ability severe enough to interfere with daily life,” according to the Alzheimer’s Association. The associ- ation’s namesake disease, Alzheimer’s, is the most common form.
More than 5 million Americans are afflicted, with 27,000 Montanans expected to be diagnosed in the next decade. Caregivers spend millions of hours caring for loved ones with Alzhei- mer’s, with a total of about $668 million worth of unpaid care.
an,” she said.
cH
Forest Service, and she was the home eco- nomics teacher, who had moved about 85 miles from her home in Nashua.
Their lives intersected at a bake sale, whether Glenn was aware of it at the time or not. Helen, in a letter she wrote to Glenn on his 80th birthday, said she spotted him first.
As the home ec teacher, she was also the advisor of the Future Homemakers of America club, which was hosting a bake sale fundraiser at the Montana Power Company offices.
“During the morning a young man walked past our sale into the manager’s office. I commented to one of the girls that he looked like a ‘good family man’ and that she try to sell him something on his way out. He got away tho! It wasn’t until after Glenn and I were married and I was hanging up a yellow and black plaid jacket
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JULY 15, 2015 | FLATHEADBEACON.COM