BOARD IN ST. LOUIS
Board of Directors of forMemory with friends and center staff.  "The symposium was truly moving," says forMemory president, Chris Van Ryzin. That's Rosann second from the left and Chris second from the right.

Recently my sisters Rosann, Chris and I headed down the Mississippi River to gather with fellow The forMemory board members to participate in a conference at Washington University. The conference discussed the presystemic testing of people who may be affected by inherited Alzheimer's disease--important in our family's journey.

Arriving a day early, we met with Dr. Abhilash Desai, formerly serving the Appleton WI area, who is now on the
faculty of Saint Louis University.

 
"It was worth the trip from Lincoln, Nebraska to St. Louis, Missouri just to meet Dr. Desai,” said Jim Cook. "As a psychiatrist and director of the Center for Healthy Brain Aging, Dr. Desai is practicing and prescribing what we in forMemory know is needed."

Said Chris: "The Center is really on the cutting edge because you individually coach nutrition, physical activity, creativity, and emotional wellness. And you do this with anyone who wants to improve their cognitive skills or are concerned because of Alzheimer's in their family history. Elsewhere, many of us with cognitive challenges have had to work very hard just to be believed.

"The symposium was truly moving. Famous scientists like Dr. John Morris and Dr. Bernardino Ghetti heard and embraced our pleas for training physicians about neurological changes that may be noticeable before memory problems. Many participants asked us for our Traveling with Hope book."

By the way, Jim Cook will be a keynoter at the Wisconsin State Alzheimer's Association conference May 2-4, 2006 in Wisconsin Dells. Workshops on our youth camp and database are also being proposed by members.

The entire experience energized us. forMemory is starting to plan its own autumn 2010 conference around a theme like "Tuning the Expression of My Genes: Cognitive Epigenetics."   We brainstormed ideas for the conference all the way back up the Mississippi to Wisconsin.