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This is sad.

SATURDAY, Nov. 26 (HealthDay News) — Judy McKellar has endured the devastation of Alzheimer’s twice — both her parents struggled with the disease before their deaths.

“I think it’s one of the most devastating diseases on the planet,” McKellar, who lives in Tualatin, Ore., said. “It robs you of the person one memory, one moment, one brain cell at a time.”

McKellar’s parents lived on their own for years after their diagnoses, with McKellar providing the care that let them remain in their own home.

“I would stay a few weeks, and then be away a few weeks,” she said. “When I was away, we would have other people who would come in.”

Caregiving for someone with Alzheimer’s disease, she added, is both “rewarding and overwhelming.”

An estimated 4.5 million Americans now have Alzheimer’s, the most common cause of dementia in people over 65. The health care costs associated with treating those patients exceed $100 billion a year. And as baby boomers grow older during the next few decades, the number of victims and the dollar costs of care are expected to almost quadruple, according to the Alzheimer’s Association.

Faced with those mounting challenges, a growing number of people are choosing to devote themselves to the care of someone with Alzheimer’s.

McKellar’s mother, Bert, began suffering the effects of Alzheimer’s first, and she underwent a gradual decline.

“Mom wouldn’t remember things,” McKellar said. “She would, say, make cheese sandwiches, only you’d have bread and butter and no cheese. She’d just forget the cheese in cheese sandwiches.”

Alzheimer’s hit her father, Mac — who used to own his own construction company — later in life. But it struck him hard, robbing him of his ability to use proper judgment and solve problems.

The disease required patience from all the caregivers who watched over the couple.

“They would agree to have Sue, a neighbor, come in when we weren’t there,” McKellar recalled. “Then they would forget they agreed and they didn’t want to have outside help.”

But matters finally reached a point where McKellar felt like her parents weren’t safe in their house anymore. She and her brothers told them they needed to be moved to an elder-care facility.

“They were angry because you can’t reason with people who can’t reason,” McKellar said. “That’s an aspect of Alzheimer’s we don’t always quite get.”

That anger, she added, was matched only by her own guilt.

“You always wish you could do it some other way that would be better,” she said. “It was reassuring to know they had excellent care, but still there was concern. I’d go visit them as often as I could and my brothers would, too.”

Experts stress that caregivers have a responsibility to keep themselves mentally and physically healthy, both when caring for the person and if the person is eventually institutionalized.

There are several options available to a caregiver. Perhaps most important, he or she needs a support network of friends, family and relatives ready and willing to help, said Bonnie Lawrence, spokeswoman for the Family Caregiver Alliance.

“It can be as simple as asking a friend to pick up a prescription or some groceries,” Lawrence said. “Or just stopping by to see how you are doing.”

“The caregiver needs to feel good about themselves,” added Kathleen O’Brien, senior vice president for program and community services at the Alzheimer’s Disease and Related Disorders Association. “If you don’t feel good, you won’t respond well to a difficult situation,” she explained.

“If families are knowledgeable about the disease and know what to expect, they can be more empowered in dealing with the disease,” O’Brien said. “The most important thing is they get linked with helpful community resources they may need.”

McKellar’s mother died January 2002 at age 83. Her father followed in August 2002 at age 91.

“They were partners for their whole lives,” McKellar recalled. “My father, before he got Alzheimer’s himself, was able to do a lot of caregiving for my mother on his own.”