#ShareTheOrange: The War with Dementia （向痴呆症的宣战）
时间与记忆，是相对的。我们活得越久，生活经验越丰富，慢慢地把这些经验凝结成人生智慧。可是，记忆本身有个天敌。那就是痴呆症。
想象我们好不容易累积起来的美好回忆慢慢地从我们的记忆中消失。我们习得的各种生活技能慢慢地从脑海中消除。渐渐地我们会开始忘记美好的回忆，忘记身边爱的人，忘记如何生活，更惨的是忘记自己是谁。
我们当然不希望家人，朋友或者自己会碰上如此的遭遇。这侥幸心理，不会让我们完全不会被这个疾病肆虐。所以，我们必须得把这个疾病看透并找出解药。当然，这是很不容易的，因为问题就出在人体最复杂的头脑。
不容易并不代表不能或没希望，而大家得在同一条线上一起打这场战。大家也得了解，这是一个疾病，并不是生老死的一个环节。可能，我们能做的并不多，但对能找到解药的信心得要有。有了信心，那么就会有动力去组织更多的研究团队去破解这个谜。
我本身关注这个疾病，也是因为经历。看着自己心爱的人，慢慢老去，但在一起的回忆满满地消失，记不起来。不止让病患者痛苦，其周围的人也因此不知所措。幸运的是，我所遭遇的是，还属于轻微，只不记得最近的事，而以前的回忆还多数存在。希望可以如此保持下去。
我们的记忆就是我们唯一能持有直到死亡的财产，其余的实体财物都只是暂时的。如果，连我们的记忆也被剥夺了，那么我们就好象在世上白活了。这，有多么的可怕啊。
这里，想分享现在西方世界在推广的一个活动 “ShareTheOrange”。 这是一项在为痴呆症研究筹款的活动，就好象之前的 “Ice Bucket Challenge” 一样，号召世界的帮助来增加资源，加快研究速度。这个活动是由英国的老人痴呆症研究所发起的。其实，在这之前，比尔盖茨在他的年度 Gates Notes 中也提到他对痴呆症的宣战。而他本身，也对这个疾病有所了解，因为他的爸爸正是此疾病的受害者。
我也把这个情况进一步推理下去。日后，人口老化的迹象会越严重。人越来越长命，而身体健康并不代表不会得到痴呆症。
所以，以这个趋势，那个解药是志在必得的啊！加油吧!
Today, I came across this initiative called #ShareTheOrange which started by Dementia Research UK.
The video they shared truly touched me as I had a similar experience with dementia from someone I love. Fortunately, my experience is something far less serious but it still caused a lot of pain. Imagine that someone you loved and spent so much time together and so many great memories were made, and in a sudden, everything of that was gone. The culprit may be clueless about what is happening but for the family, it is an unbearable pain.
For me, memory is the only thing that I could bring along until my death. It is the record of my journey, remembering the things and people I loved, understanding the world, and learning skills to live independently. What if out of a sudden, my "memory disk" corrupted and there is no backup at all. I am definitely in deep shit. Not only I will become a burden to my family, I also lost my own identity, forgetting who I am. Then, what is the reason I spent my whole life, living the life and end up with a blank mind. That is scary and I do hope there could be a cure soon in near future.
Besides, it is a trend that our population will have more aging groups as we are relatively healthy compared to last decades. With that being said, imagine there are few millions (like the previous infographic stated) that suffers from dementia, that will be a crisis in terms of human resource shortage to take care of them. Thus, it is critical to start now and fight the war.
Before that, we must create an understanding and awareness about this disease. It should be understand as a natural cause, but a curable disease. With that, only we can distribute more resources to expedite the research process and hopefully, in no time, come out with the solution for this disease.