THE STORY OF THE WOMEN’S ALZHEIMER’S MOVEMENT

In 2003, award-winning journalist Maria Shriver’s father, Sargent Shriver, was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease, a diagnosis that put her on the path toward becoming one of the world’s most recognizable Alzheimer’s advocates. In 2010, she partnered with the Alzheimer’s Association to publish The Shriver Report: A Woman’s Nation Takes on Alzheimer’s, which broke the story that two out of three brains that develop Alzheimer’s belong to women. This groundbreaking report was the catalyst for founding the Women’s Alzheimer’s Movement (WAM) – the world’s first organization devoted exclusively to women and Alzheimer’s disease.

WAM’s innovative work in Alzheimer’s disease prevention complemented research efforts and programming at Cleveland Clinic Lou Ruvo Center for Brain Health in Las Vegas, Nevada. In 2020, the two organizations collaborated to open the world’s first and only Alzheimer’s disease prevention center for women: The Women’s Alzheimer’s Movement Prevention Center at Cleveland Clinic.

This successful collaboration laid the foundation for the two organizations to further build upon our shared mission, and in 2022 we took this partnership further. Today, the Women’s Alzheimer’s Movement at Cleveland Clinic is the preeminent organization for women and Alzheimer’s disease, fighting every day to change the future of women’s brain health through innovative science, education, funding and advocacy.

WAM helped get us to that understanding in part by funding over $4 million in seed grants, which have resulted in over $83 million more being invested in women-based Alzheimer’s research by government agencies, private corporations and foundations, and we’ve inspired countless other institutions to do the same. WAM has been at the forefront of moving the needle on public recognition of Alzheimer’s as a disease that not only affects more women than men, but also affects them differently. That is why in 2020, we opened the world’s first WAM Prevention Center with our partners at the Cleveland Clinic Lou Ruvo Center for Brain Health in Las Vegas, providing women the lifestyle tools they need to minimize their chances of developing the disease. We are proud to have helped lead the charge in recognizing that women’s bodies and brains are unique when it comes to Alzheimer’s.

Having helped define who is impacted by the disease, WAM now turns its attention just as intensively to our understanding of the why.

It’s why in February 2022, we partnered with Cleveland Clinic, one of the world’s leading medical and research instituions, to become WAM at Cleveland Clinic. Our focus now expands to include Alzheimer’s and other neurological diseases that impact women as we continue to educate people about brain health and prevention and raise money for gender-based research.

WAM recognizes that to achieve success in this next battle of uncovering the why, we will need to drill down, think big and fund research into women’s health on a global scale. We believe this is only possible with the creation of a coalition of like-minded organizations committed to challenging ourselves on every scientific, political, social and economic level so we can finally answer the question of why this disease is a leading cause of death in women.

Women are pleading for answers to their many health needs, especially when it comes to Alzheimer’s and other issues that put them at higher risk for developing the disease. WAM is committed to working with partners everywhere to help provide women with the answers they crave. We set out 10 years ago to help change the narrative about Alzheimer’s. We did that. Now let’s change the future of Alzheimer’s itself, one woman at a time.

OUR MISSION

Our mission is to discover why Alzheimer’s discriminates against women and communities of color and to prepare women and their families for the impact of Alzheimer’s by providing them with information and tools to help prevent the disease.

OUR VISION

We envision a future in which we know why Women are at greater risk for Alzheimer’s and we have a cure for the disease.

OUR WORK

We work to change the future for women and Alzheimer’s by focusing on the four pillars: research, education, advocacy and clinical care.

• We fund critical gender based research to advance our knowledge of how Alzheimer’s affects women.
• We educate the public about Alzheimer’s through summits, national polls, reports and educational guides. 
• We advocate at all levels of government for policies, increased funding and other social, political and economic changes that will move the needle on Alzheimer’s.
• We provide on the ground services to give women the medical guidance they need to reduce their risk for developing the disease.