Alzheimer’s Awareness Comes to Sparta Drive-In

The power of music for those suffering with Alzheimer’s and dementia will be on the big screen at the Sparta drive-in theater Saturday.

November is National Alzheimer’s Awareness Month and National Family Caregiver Month.

The award-winning documentary is titled Alive Inside. It focuses on one social worker’s ability to improve a patients communication abilities through songs. Upper Cumberland Area Agency on Aging and Disability Family Caregiver Assistant Sara Martin said roughly 15 million Americans serve as a caregiver for someone suffering with a form of dementia and the film will highlight a way to work through the disease.

“We never know when we’re gonna step into the role of being a caregiver, so always trying to prepare ourselves the best that we can,” Martin said. “Not only to advocate for one another but we never know who might be struggling as a caregiver and who we can help provide information to.”

Martin said Alzheimer’s affects nearly 6 million Americans. However, she said the documentary provides an insight into new ways to bring out the feelings of someone suffering.

“The music and the type of music that can help bring people alive, people that have kind of become withdrawn, kind of non-verbal, not really interacting very well,” Martin said. “The social worker had done some studies and let them listen to music and you just see his patients come alive.”

The Sparta Drive-In will open its gates at 4:30 PM and the movie will start at 5:30 PM. This free screening is being hosted by the Tennessee Commission on Aging and Disability and the Upper Cumberland Area Agency on Aging and Disability.