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Good morning everyone and welcome to another segment of Mind Your Business brought to you by IBC Bank and Commerce Bank. My name is Gabriel Castillo. I'm Executive Director of Corporate Marketing for our company and very proud to be here today to talk a little bit about a very serious topic. As always, we welcome your comments. We welcome your opinions. I love hearing from everyone, whether it's talking about the next topic or how I should comb my hair. Thank you for sending all your information in, and we enjoy that dialogue with everyone. And of course, if you follow us, please follow us on ibc.com, ibcbankwedomore, kgns.tv, and any other way you can get a hold of Mind Your Business within your devices. So today, I'm very happy to welcome two very special guests that are longtime friends because we've been working together on this project for several years. Mr. Javier Leanda, who's the chairman of the Walk to End Alzheimer's this year, again for the third year, and then development director for the Alzheimer's Association here in Laredo, Valdemar Perez. Thank you for being here with us. Of course, yes. Thank you for inviting us. And, you know, it's a very delicate topic, and I know that people are probably thinking, why is a business show talking about Alzheimer's? Well, it's a very serious matter that affects everyone in this world. And sadly, the numbers do not look good for Laredo. The numbers are very high, but can you share a little bit more about those numbers? Yeah. So in Laredо, we are tied with number one with the El Paso in the state of Texas. we are at 11% of our population is being affected by Alzheimer's disease. We are also, 1.5% of every Hispanic in this community has Alzheimer's or is going to be going through Alzheimer's Disease. And Mr. De Anda, I know in your case, as in mine, I had my sister who had dementia and unfortunately passed away four years ago. I know within your family you've had some family members that have passed on as well that you had to deal with very serious situations very serious matters and changes in your lifestyles it is it's a very serious situation in fact I had my mother who had Alzheimer's my grandmother had Alzheimer then my father started getting Alzheimer's and on my wife's side her father had Alzheimer's been doing caregiving for a while and believe me it's no fun I don't wish it upon anybody caregiving is something that's very stressful takes a lot out of you. And a lot of times when someone asks you a question once, then they ask you a second time and a third time, it's very hard to try to stay calm because the worst thing you can do is say, don't you remember? Or also another thing that is very bad is losing your temper and saying, you've already asked me that. You know, so it is very trying and trying to educate the public on how to handle that being a caregiver is very very it's a very very hard job and i'm sure it's very important to also emphasize the fact that there is no shame in this disease i know a lot of people try to deal with it on their own they say it's not in my family that's not what my father my grandfather my aunt are going through i think acceptance is probably part of the course right right and i think you've dealt with that as well you know accepting it and and then going on with what has to be done right yes in fact uh to be honest with you i feel that one of the biggest issues is people don't want to know and it's like saying okay you have cancer do you not want to know that you have early treatment is very very important and unless you get early treatment if you get earlier on stage there's treatments that right now are available Lekembe is available here in town. There's also another treatment called Kisunla, which we haven't quite gotten it to Laredo. But treatment is very important, especially early stage. I've talked to too many people who say, I don't want to know. I don'T want to KNOW. Why don't you want to Know? It's very important to KNOW because knowing is half the battle. The other half is how are you going to treat it? There's ways, I think, that can be a way of being able to beat this disease. I feel it can be done. But you need to know. And, you know, quite frankly, I think we've taken great strides in the past few years in Laredo. Valdemar, I know that you probably dealt with your own situation. I know you started out as a volunteer, and somehow we reined you in to be a full-time worker with us. And I knowthat was quite a feat for us, but we're glad you're helping the organization like you are. But tell us about your situation. Yeah, well, it's such a personal cause to me. I mean, losing my mom to Alzheimer's after she had it for about 16 years, I mean it's horrible. And one of the biggest things was that I felt alone. You know, we felt like we had no resources. We felt like didn't have anybody to call. After her journey, we kind of, or our journey, we kind found out that the Alzheimer's Association existed. And then we were able to, you know, help others now. Like a lot of people call me now and they're like, where can we start? Where can we get information? Or how do we, you now, get a diagnosis and stuff like that? So it's important, like Mr. Danda said, that we get those diagnoses early so that we're able to, early detection is key. And tell us one of the key organizations that's available right now. I know we've got several groups doing several things, but can you tell us just the first step if someone has that issue? If they have the first steps, obviously see your doctor, ask them to test you for the genes. that you know we start off there you can also always reach out to the alzheimer's association we have a 24 hour seven day a week hotline they have a bunch of resources for you and they can reach out you know help you find a physician that can help you do that that's right and then from a local perspective i know that there are several things that we've tried here as well to get people help the caregiver you know for example i know you've given some guidance for that is that still happening is that so yes sir we still have our programs that we're having we have a program director that comes down and she does support group meetings there's a lot of care and resources there's law education series that they do our partners at UT we are they're always hosting us and having we just had a symposium recently with the city of Laredo so yeah there's a lot going on for the community they can always call our 1-800 number which is 1- 800-272-3900 or even call the city Laredo for Public Health and they can also reach out to myself or my counterpart Maxine Vieira for programs. And just so you all know audience we're going to be sharing that information on our screen so please have a pen and paper ready because we're gonna have lots of information that could be very vital for you all. And with that said I know that overall we try to raise money and the money is for research and now there's a lot of solutions that we're trying to find there's a lot of things that we're trying to deal with. Overall, I believe that through time, like everything else, we hope that we find a cure. Yeah, absolutely. But I think right now we're probably dealing more with finding at least a stop, right, to detect it and to stop it before it goes any further. So when we come back, I want to talk a little bit more about that and what's available out there. I know you've mentioned a couple of situations, a couple of names, and what's available outside of Laredo, because sometimes we have to go outside of laredo to get some of these straight. So don't go anywhere. 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Free checking at IBC. How strong is your app's security? Thank you, and welcome back to our second segment of Mind Your Business. My name is Gabriel Castillo, and I'm happy to welcome our audience today and our special guest that are talking about a very delicate and very serious topic. I think Alzheimer's is something that we consider taboo. I think with a lot of families, and I know Laredoans and Hispanics are very proud of, you know, their heritage, their legacies that they leave behind. And sometimes we don't want to deal with these things. And, you Know, that's the reality is facing it as part of the course and then finding a solution. And now we've talked about what's out there, what's available. What are the trends now? What are we finding? Is there hope? Mr. Dede, what do you see? Well, to be honest with you, a lot of people don't realize, but it's genetic. A lot of times it can be passed on from parents, from grandparents, and that's why it's so important to get tested and to find out whether you have it or not. So you can find out if you have the gene for Alzheimer's. There's an APOE gene, and if youhave the APOe gene 4, number 4, that means that you're at risk of possibly getting Alzheimer's, there's a gene 3 and 2, which is minimal risk, and there's a test you can take for this and it's very important that you do take it especially if you've had a family history to find out what gene you have have you taken i've taken it i have the three and the thing is it's scary because do you really want to know a lot of people like i said don't want to but now that i i know that i have three i feel that i'm more in a comfort zone two would be better but three is good four you have to really start taking tests looking after yourself and i feel that there's possibly five different ways of possibly defeating these or or keeping it from getting alzheimer's one is mental health mental exercise doing mental exercise is very important there's a lot of apps that you can actually download and do a mental test and mental you know, I guess exercises. There's also physical exercise. Go out. Don't be on the couch. Get out and walk. And I remember a doctor telling me when I was young, 50 years old, he says, you need to walk 35 minutes a day, a brisk walk, not a slow walk, brisk, walk to get your blood pressure up. So that is very important. Then there's also diet. Diet is very importante. You know, you've got, you've got to take care of don't don't eat too many sugars i've heard of alzheimer's possibly being type 3 diabetes which is a lot of sugar intake and possibly uh give you the alzheimers and also what are what are we eating here in town is that a reason why we've got such a high incidence in town then there's the two s's the sleep you get plenty of sleep and the one that's very hard to contain the stress. Stress. So if you can try to keep your stress levels down, that's very important in trying to keep Alzheimer's at bay. And back to the test, where does one go for that test? What type of doctor do you go to to get that? The Alzheimer's is a swab and you order it and I think it costs $125. Something like that. But it's also in clinics. You can ask your primary care physician and there you should be able to do that as well it's the APOE test okay so then if you see me running down Delmar you'll know that I got number three I got that three now I have to move on there because I mean I worry about that and literally every day now that my two sisters have been diagnosed my brother unfortunately died of cancer last year but he was perfectly fine and my parents were perfectly fine. My grandparents were perfectly fine. But how did this happen? It skipped obviously some generations there, but now it's there somehow. We have to worry about that. And so now you, let's say, are dealing with a patient that does come up with Alzheimer's. The diagnosis is there that you do have Alzheimer's, what is the next step? What treatment do you seek or where do you go? I mean, that's where you would reach out to your neurologist and the neurologist can refer you over to i mean there's a lot of research studies being done depending how early in the stages you are uh there's a lot of clinical trials being done there's some being done here in laredo uh we have our partners at ut with biggs institute that has a clinical study in the dementia clinic happening now in lareda as well so um i mean THERE'S A TON OF DIFFERENT PLACES YOU CAN CALL OUR 1-800 NUMBER THEY'LL MATCH YOU WITH ONE OF THESE UH CLINICAL TRIALS UM AND THEN THEY GO FROM THERE OKAY AND And so now, I know that some of the stuff that we're doing, I say we because I kind of include myself in your association. Of course you do. But I know the research is very important. Is there clinical studies that are showing hope for the future? Yeah, absolutely. I mean, if you think about it, we're a lot more progressed now than what we were even five years ago, right? I mean we have the Lecambi now, like you said earlier, it's being done. There were infusions before. Now they're being done as injections. The blood test is just a simple blood test that you go in, like lab work, and they can do the APOE for gene testing. So those are all progressions trying to get to that goal of at least stopping the disease for now up until we find a cure that completely puts us out of business. I know. That's a hope, right, that we do get out of бизнес with that. I know we're dealing with something with cancer. Everything that's happening right now. We hope that we don't have to worry about those in the future, but so far we do. And I know that the other very important issue, and I know this was a very difficult thing for all of us in my family, was the caregiving. I think that I know you all have dealt in your own way. Sometimes we're unfortunate that we don't have the means to pay for help and we end up, you know, having to do things, readjusting our lives. Sometimes we can't afford it, but you can't find the help. right because it's a very specialized uh caregiving i imagine right it is and i don't know how how do you how do y'all deal with that what what do you think is the solution for people here that may be going through that i mean that's why it's important to have you know these talks and have um more resources out there for the community because there is very minimal memory care for places here in laredo uh most of everybody's being taken care of by a loved one at home who That also works and also has to take care of their grandchildren or somebody else in their home. So there's a lot that goes into caregiving other than just caring for someone who's ill with Alzheimer's, right? Financially, it's a big strain for the families because if they have to pay someone, it comes out of pocket. It's not covered. I mean, that's another thing that, you know, the Alzheimer's Association is helping. So they have like something called Ripple where they can actually get help from Ripple for the Alzheimer'S, for private care services. And how does that work? I believe you reach out to the Alzheimer's Association. They make a referral to someone, you know, to a local primary, they're like private duty services. I believe there's a cap of how many hours they get, but there's some relief for the families that they can have for like respite care. See, these are the type of things that we need to tell our audience about because just like everything else, I think we live in a society where there's so many things happening. and when something like this is diagnosed in your family, you don't know where to start. And thank God you all are around. Thank God the Alzheimer's Association is around to help with that. And when we continue with our next segment, we're going to talk a little bit about how you can be a part of the solution by helping out with our fundraising and with some of our awareness and spreading the word about Alzheimer's and how we can find a cure for it. So don't go anywhere. We'll be right back. Hola Laredo, I'm Leanne Bernal, your new co-host for Hola, and I'm so excited to be a part of this journey with you. On our website, we're talking all things lifestyle, whether it's local spots you love or new ones you haven't discovered yet. If you have a story to share or want to be featured, send us an email at hola at kgns.tv. We'd love to connect with you, and don't forget to follow us on social media to keep up with everything we've got going on. Laredos, this is for you. See you soon. Today, we're teaching the children to save. IBC Bank teaches children to save. At IBC bank, we believe financial education starts early. That's why we're bringing fun, interactive learning straight to the classroom. From hands-on workbooks to exciting prizes, our financial literacy sessions teach students how to make smart money moves they'll carry for life. Want your school to be part of the fun? Contact IBCbank today and schedule your free financial literacy class. Why pay a monthly fee? Free checking at IBC. How strong is your app security? KGNS aims to inspire, uplift, and unite our community while showcasing the incredible acts of heroism and leadership that happen right in our backyard. Show us your community spirit. Together, we can empower others and celebrate those who make our hometown a better place to live in. Join us every fourth Tuesday of the month to recognize the drive and commitment from citizens making a change. KGNS Honors, only on KGNS News. welcome back to another segment of bind your business today we're talking about a very serious topic that really affects just about every family in one way or another and it's unfortunate that we live in a city that ranks pretty high up there in uh alzheimer's and so um i think as we go along We try to find solutions, bring people together, and try to raise money as much as we can to find not only a cure, but bring awareness to people. I think awareness is probably the key to any disease that's going on in the world right now. But this is one of those that creeps up on you. It does not discriminate. Just about anyone can get Alzheimer's or dementia. and the sad part is there is no cure at this time. There is no actual cure, so that makes it double difficult. It's not like you can go and get, I hate to say it, but even when you have chemo, you go radiation, you go and have surgery and it's removed. This cannot be removed. This is something that you have to deal with. And you know, one of the serious things that I see from the business perspective is the fact that people, either the caregiver or even the person experiencing alzheimer's their life changes dramatically and that means probably a very serious matter financially for their family for them you know overall as far as what they're doing i know in some cases we have someone that i know very well she had a very promising career a very high ranking position in the company she was with and both her parents ended up being diagnosed one first that she was handling that with caregivers and whatever and then the second parent ended up with the same things she said i can't i can't find enough caregiving for both of them so she quit and she put both parents in her home to take care of them and that's that's also the hispanic way we don't we don' t put you know unless it's really really dire and we really can't you keep it i know my sister was very difficult when she did end up in a in a nursing home but they were giving her the proper care because they were watching it was specifically for alzheimer's and those uh clinics are available those nursing homes are available specifically for uh alzheimers patients i believe right and that's something that we lack here in laredo i mean there's not that many i i mean if i can think of just one probably in loredo that you know is specifically for patients with memory care issues and that's the thing too is that i think uh overall lareda is deprived of right and we have that problem because probably because we're so isolated i mean we are 150 miles from any other city it seems right big city so uh it's hard to get people here the quality of life is also something that we always debate about you know in fact uh neurologist we've got uh two neurologists that come from san antonio to laredo just to see patients and then we also have one uh dr camero who's a neurologist here in town so basically the two that are coming in from out of town you have to go you go to ut health center and apply and see when he can see it and i think the line is getting bigger and bigger so the sooner that you can apply the better it is and one thing that i'd like to ask the public is if they could please spread the word if one person can tell 10 people and those 10 people can tell10 more and 10 more that right there will at least educate the people that it's here. It's not going to get any better. It is not going to get better. We need to act now before it gets to be a tsunami to the point where it's going to be very expensive, not only for the people who are having to take care of the person, their loved one, but also for the state because they're going to have to give in some sort of money. And I know that Proposition 14 passed, which was, what, $5 billion? that over 10 years is going to be distributed to the state, that's something that we need to lobby. That's something we need to ask our congressmen or our state representative, everybody to see if we can push to get some monies down here. We really, really need it. And you know, I think it always boils down to money. And that's the reality. We can tell you, oh no, it does matter. And it does matter on so many levels. And I think as much as we all try to do something about it, we take small steps, but we take steps. It's bad when you don't bother to do anything about it. And I know that very soon we are preparing for another Walk to End Alzheimer's, I believe, November the 14th, a Saturday, at TAMIU. I'm very happy to see so many people out. And at the same time, it makes me sad because I know that they're dealing with the situation. Those are the people that go out there. But we want all of Laredo to participate. Do not wait until you're a caregiver or your family is going through it. Help now by being a part of this. Can you tell us a little bit more what they can do, how they can get their teams together? Yeah, they can. I mean, the walk is really what funds all this stuff that we do for the communities and that's really trying to help us find a cure for it, right? So they can fundraise. We just had an amazing fashion show. We have a golf tournament coming up that are put together by some of these amazing team members that they go out and create a team for their group or for their family, and then they raise funds, and they donate it all back to the Walk to End Alzheimer's and ultimately the Alzheimer's Association. And you know, that's what, in my estimation, I always tell my family this, even without an actual cause, I tell them, don't buy me anything for Christmas, for my birthday. I try to pick a cause. And when the walk is coming up, my birthday is in August, so I tell them, just write a check to the Alzheimer's Association. I mean, how many of us really need another candle? How many of you need another purse? You know, give where it matters, where your dollars will actually go to something worthwhile. And this information is being, we're including this information on our screen, so please do not hesitate to use the QR code that we have and check the information. Check out the social media for the Alzheimer's Association. In our own IBC Bank, we do more. We're going to be sharing more information on the walk. Mr. DeAndes also serves on our board, so we're very happy to promote as much as we can. I'd like to say one thing is that I'd love to see if we can get more sponsors. And I know IBC is a major sponsor. IBC has stepped up to the plate, and they do more, and They really do. In fact, I've kind of been bugging Dennis Nixon on getting us money. And again, he's been very good, very accommodating. They've been one of the major sponsors. A.J. Edwards is a national. But IBC is a local sponsor. And if we can get more banks, if we can get More sponsors to help try to eliminate this terrible, terrible disease, which is affecting us big time here. And really, as a business community, I hope we can all come together and do this and help out the Alzheimer's Association. Eventually, sadly, you're going to be helping your own family in some way because that's just the way this is going. Think about it. 11% out of 250,000 citizens are being diagnosed right now. Those are the ones diagnosed. But 11% of our senior citizens are above 365. So, audience, please watch for this. Please help out. Please be a part of the solution. I know that we're all going to have to be a Part of the Problem someday because we're going have to deal with it ourselves. But for now, let's be part of the solution and do what we can to help out. We're going to be sharing that information with you on the screen, and we hope you're going able to sign up. We need those sponsors, business people out there. Please step up to the plate and sign up for the Walk to End Alzheimer's on November the 14th at TAMIU at 8 a.m. And I know from a standpoint of a company, I work for a company. I do marketing. So we brand them. We promote you. Trust me, we'll be promoting you as much as we can. But please, please be a part of the cure, be a Part of the Solution for this deadly disease that really is plaguing our society. And I want to thank you all for being here today. I know it takes a lot to talk about your own stories. And along the way, thank you so much for the time and the effort. And I hope our audience helps out too. Sign up. You see these people here. They're very hardworking people that volunteer. These are all volunteer hours that people put in. And you have a great committee as well. I know that you have people that are really step up every day, and I see you calling for meetings. Sorry, I don't make all the meetings. But thank you for being with us, and thank you, audience, for joining us. We hope to see you again next time. Remember to get up there and walk. Do the exercise. Go walk. Thank you.