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FeedAlzheimer’s and Families: A Malvern Woman Faces Her Mother’s Disease
November is National Alzheimer’s Disease Awareness Month. And Kerry Luksic has found the silver lining to her mother’s battle.
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A few months ago, Pat Summitt, much-decorated head coach of the University of Tennessee women’s basketball team, announced that she had Alzheimer’s-type early-onset dementia. Her eight national championship victories and 1,071 wins—the most for any basketball coach, men’s or women’s, at any four-year college or university—have made her a legend. Now, at just 59 years old, Summitt is living proof that Alzheimer’s isn’t solely an elderly person’s disease. No matter what a person’s age, the diagnosis is devastating.
Summitt joins the ranks of about 5 million Americans living with Alzheimer’s. Kerry Luksic’s mom, Bobbie Lonergan, is also among the millions being recognized in November as part of National Alzheimer’s Disease Awareness Month. She was diagnosed six years ago at 72.
November is also National Family Caregivers Month. And while Malvern’s Luksic doesn’t care for her mother full-time, she sympathizes with the 10 million Americans looking after someone with Alzheimer’s. “Don’t pity me; pray for me,” Luksic recalls Summitt saying in an interview, which struck an emotional chord with her. “It’s something my mom would definitely say, too. Her faith is what has kept her strong her entire life.”
