Stamp encourages Alzheimer's awareness

[October 17, 2008]  WASHINGTON (AP) -- Alzheimer's is a frightening possibility that takes a toll on both the victims and their families.

Ethel Kessler of Bethesda, Md., should know. Her mother Ruth, now in a nursing home, has suffered from the brain-wasting disease for years.

That's why Kessler, who has designed more than 200 postage stamps, wanted to take on the job of planning the new Alzheimer's commemorative, which goes on sale Friday.

Alzheimer's is "all of our worst nightmares," Kessler said in a telephone interview.

Coping with the illness is "very difficult, it's sad. There's a prolonged sense of loss and grief, because you're grieving every stage that they go through," she said.

The 42-cent postage stamp shows a woman, head bent down, with a comforting hand resting on her shoulder. The image is slightly obscured, as if seen though a mist.

"It's symbolic of somebody from darkness to light," Kessler said. The image is not her mother or a specific individual, she added.

"If this person were too photographically real, you'd focus too much on this person. In a way they are in a fog. We don't understand Alzheimer's, but they are not the person they used to be," Kessler said.

According to the Alzheimer's Association, as many as 5.2 million Americans suffer with Alzheimer's with a new case developing every 71 seconds.

Kessler recalls first noticing her mother having problems in 2000 when she was 78. She progressed from moving to a smaller apartment to needing a companion, assisted care and finally the current nursing home in Baltimore.

Unlike some Alzheimer's victims, Kessler's mother seems happy and enjoys visits from children's even though she doesn't recognize them.

"I come in and touch her shoulder or knee and look at her for a minute, and there's a spark of recognition. She hasn't said my name in a long time, and I don't ask her to say my name," Edith Kessler said.

Kessler is one of several stamp designers for the U.S. Postal Service and she said at least four of them proposed designs for the stamp, all having been touched by the disease in one way or another. Her past designs have included the Breast Cancer stamp and the adoption stamp.

First day-of-issue ceremonies for the new stamp are at 10 a.m. Friday at the Blanchette Rockefeller Neurosciences Institute in Morgantown, W.V.

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On the Net:

U.S. Postal Service: http://www.usps.com/

[Associated Press; By RANDOLPH E. SCHMID]

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