By Brandon O’Connor

The Vicksburg Post
Alzheimer’s is a deeply personal topic for Phylis Cowart. She spent years caring for her mother by herself before her family finally intervened and made her ask for help.

“My family had to intervene finally with me to get something to change, to get something done,” Cowart said. “You have to have some kind of support. I was trying to do it alone and any one of them would have helped me.”

When she saw a friend going through the same struggle and attempting to go about it alone, Cowart decided she had to act. In December, she partnered with Lee Ann Whitley, the director of Missions and JOY Ministry at Crawford Street United Methodist Church, and Walter Frazier, the director of Grace Christian Counseling, to form the Memory Caregivers Support Group.

“When [Phylis] came to me, I said that I have never started anything like this, but I know who has and I know who will talk me through it,” Whitley said. “I went over and talked to Walter and he told me what we needed to do and how to get started.”

The group will hold its first meeting Monday, March 6, at 6 p.m. at Crawford Street United Methodist Church. It is open to all those who are serving as caretakers for people with memory related disorders.

“There’s just such a need in our community, and even in this church for that support group,” Whitley said.

In January, Cowart and Whitley attended a meeting of a similar support group at Broadmoor Baptist Church in Madison that has been operating for seven years.

The experience showed Cowart and Whitley just how helpful groups like these can be, and also helped them as they worked to plan one in Vicksburg.

“It was a huge room and everybody that had somebody talked,” Cowart said. “They were beginning to hear something they could use for themselves. One that we felt for the most, they told him he had to find somebody to give him some relief.”

The meeting on March 6 will serve as an information session for caregivers and will include a panel of specialist speaking about what types of support are available.

The panelist include: Dr. Rusty Barnes, a local physician, Kim Barnes, a nurse, Dr. Phil Scurria, a physiatrist, Ali Hopson, a dietician, Connie Hoseman, who works with Hometown Medical, and Lin Cheslek, who work with Hospice.

“The reason we are having this is it gives you a feeling that there is support out there in the community,” Cowart said. “There are options out there. When somebody is living with a person with Alzheimer’s or Dementia of any kind, they feel alone, but there is everybody else out there. Once you know that feeling, somehow that helps you.”

The support group will meet the first Monday of each month. After the first meeting, the plan is to have occasional speakers, but mostly it will serve as a safe place for caregivers to talk about their struggles and hear advice from people in similar situations.

“It is very confidential,” Whitley said. “What is said in that group stays there.”

For additional resources about serving as a caregiver for someone with Alzheimer’s or Dementia, you can check the website of the Mississippi Alzheimer’s Association.

For more information about the Memory Caregivers Support Group prior to the first meeting, call Lee Ann Whitley at 601-636-5612.