Actor Elizondo Pushes For Alzheimer's Awareness

Actor Hector Elizondo gets emotional when he talks about the toll Alzheimer's disease took on his mother and his father.

It's been more than 40 years since his late mother, Carmen, was diagnosed with the disease that robbed her of her memory.

"We didn't know what it was back then, and my father struggled to take care of her," the 71-year-old actor said during a recent visit to Tampa.

"There was a sense of shame associated with people who appeared to be getting senile, and there weren't any support groups or any treatments that we knew of in the 1960s," he recalls.

Elizondo, who has appeared in more than 80 films and TV series, is actively involved in Alzheimer's awareness.

He recently went on a nationwide tour accompanied by medical specialists, including Miami neurologist Richard Isaacson.

Elizondo, whose TV credits range from "Chicago Hope" to his current role on "Monk," says several members of his family, including four aunts, were affected by the disease.

He was in his 30s when his Puerto Rican mother started having memory problems. "She would go shopping and forget items on the list," he says. "As it progressed, she lost interest in her appearance and would have episodes of disorientation. She would wander from home."

Elizondo, who was raising his own family and working in theater and films, helped his parents as much as he could. "There were days when I had to leave my family to come to help with her care," he says.

One of his most heartbreaking memories is when he took his mother to a play in which he was acting to give his father a break. "She wanted to write him a letter, and she got as far as 'Dear Martin, I love you so.' And then it trailed off in this childish way," he says. "She sat there with the note on her lap and the pen on the note, just staring into space."

His father, Martin Echevarria Elizondo, a respected businessman of Basque descent, was embarrassed for her and his family, Elizondo says. "As the disease progressed, he would devote all of his time and energy to caring for her. I watched him go from a vigorous, proud man to a frailer shadow of himself."

Elizondo's father eventually had a nervous breakdown. He died a month before Carmen, who died nearly 10 years after she exhibited the first signs of the disease.

Although cultural attitudes toward Alzheimer's have changed, and there is more treatment and caregiver support available, people still need help, he says. "Many caregivers try to do it all themselves, and they don't know of all the resources available."

Isaacson, assistant professor of Neurology and Medicine at the University of Miami, says more than 5 million Americans, including more than 360,000 in Florida, suffer from Alzheimer's.

Both Isaacson and Elizondo refer people to the www.CaringForAlz.com Web site, an online resource supported by Novartis Pharmaceuticals Corp. There are other Web sites for support, including www.alz.org (run by the nonprofit Chicago-based Alzheimer's Association).

Isaacson says there is no cure yet for Alzheimer's, but some treatments appear to slow the progression. Novartis makes a skin patch for the treatment of mild to moderate Alzheimer's dementia. Isaacson says the patch provides the body with a steady dose of rivastigmine, a drug that can improve the patient's quality of life.