Thank you, I would love to.
The linkage between dementia and vascular disease is undisputed. In fact, 80% of dementia is vascular related.
The Heart and Stroke Foundation has been working in the vascular area ever since we started with cholesterol, hypertension. What we're doing is we're taking our prevention programs that we know prevent vascular disease—80% of vascular disease is preventable—and educating Canadians that, similarly, this can prevent dementia. Fifty-four per cent of Alzheimer's is preventable and 80% of the vascular dementia, because it's vascular, is preventable. People don't think in terms of dementia being caused by lifestyle or diet, and that's where we're trying to go. Working with the Alzheimer Society, the Canadian Diabetes Association, and the YMCA, we can get this message out.
The Alzheimer Society is doing great work. They are focusing primarily on research for a cure, and then what happens if you have dementia, as well as prevention. If you think about what Heart and Stroke has been doing for 60 years, we have been focusing a significant amount of our effort, whether it's research dollars or advocacy or health promotion, on preventing vascular disease. We have a very big footprint across the country, with all of our volunteers and health promotion specialists and major relationships with leading research institutions at hospitals and universities, where we can get this message out and do our program, which in our submission, the Alzheimer Society as well as Canadian Diabetes have completely supported, to prevent dementia.