Mr. Chairman and members of the Committee. Thank you for inviting me to testify today about an issue that is very important to me and that I feel I know and understand on many levels. My father, who died two years ago, developed Alzheimer's late in life. He was blessed, not only because he lived only a few years with the worst symptoms of the disease, but also because we found him a wonderful home in Arizona where he was well cared for until he died.
I know this disease because I feel I've lost not one, but two fathers to the disease. I began my film career as Ronald Reagan's daughter in the movie "Louisa." That was my very first film and it was a critical time in my professional development. Ronald Reagan was so supportive of me. In many ways, I suppose, he was as important as my real father. Now he is lost to this disease, too.
As an actress I have played the role of a person with Alzheimer's in three different productions. One was a television series with George C. Scott. Another was in the USA movie "Road to Galveston." And, more recently, I have done readings of a new play, a work in progress based on the documentary, "Complaints of a Dutiful Daughter." To fully understand these roles, I tried hard to "get inside" the people who have this disease. I spent hours and hours in day care centers and nursing homes. I ate meals with the residents. I played games with them. They accepted me as one of them. I talked with them and got to know their families and their caregivers. While it is never possible to fully understand another human being, I did learn a lot.
Having Alzheimer's disease is like waking up from a nap and finding yourself on a park bench ... in a city you have never been to ... surrounded by people you don't know and things you don't recognize. The terror of that! Alzheimer's is being in your own home but not knowing you are home. It is that ever-present feeling of wanting to go home, of searching for that safe place. Perhaps this is why so much time is spent packing things. The half acted-upon impulses. The constant seeking of approval, of reassurance that you haven't done anything to embarrass yourself. The wandering. And it is so heart-wrenching that no matter how hard one tries, it is not possible to find that place of familiarrity and trust, I remember a man I met who was a volunteer at a day care center. He had nursed his wife with Alzheimer's for 10 or 15 years. They would go to bed at night and make love. Then she would turn and look at him and scream, "Who are you? Get out of here!" The horror and pain of that!
My father was a dignified man and proud of what he had accomplished, even if a little shy about his lack of education. As a child, he worked for his father in the bakery business and was unable to attend school. He eventually owned his own furniture business, an accomplishment he was very proud of As his mind slipped away during his last few years, my father talked a lot about the bakery and furniture businesses. These were safe, familiar topics he could grab hold of, an anchor to his past that affirmed him as a person.
For my father, the disease brought horrible indignities to a very dignified man. While living at home in a retirement community where he fortunately knew most people he would wander in his pajamas. And then later on when he was in a small nursing home in Arizona, he had grown so weary of the confusion and anxiety that he walked into the backyard one day, removed all of his clothes and lay down on the earth. When someone came to help him he whispered, "I just want to go to sleep." Eventually, my father stopped eating and drinking and only then did he find peace. Fifteen or twenty years ago it was a rare acquaintance who had any connection with someone with Alzheimer's disease. Today, it is epidemic. Almost everywhere I go I meet someone who has a parent or other loved one with the disease.
The human costs are staggering. We must do something to end this epidemic. We must find a cure to prevent the terror, the indignities of this disease. If I could give a voice to my father and to all the people I have met who have this disease, if I could imagine what they would want me to say, it is this: "please, there is a person here listen to my feelings deal with me don't
forget me don't ignore me please, I am here..."

"Thank you for letting me speak to you today."