IN A WORLD OF ACTIVISM, ALZHEIMER'S IS JUST A TRAGEDY.

Byline: Si Frumkin

MY mother had Alzheimer's disease for 6 years before she died and so I have a special fear that affects me when I forget a face, a name, anything. ``Is this it?'' I think to myself, ``is it happening to me?''

I watched a bright, happy, efficient, talented, beautiful woman become a stolid, passive, unsmiling infant. At first she just seemed to have lapses of memory. She would say things that had no relation to what she had been talking about a moment ago, she'd respond to questions that weren't asked, she'd smile and nod her head and I'd know that she didn't understand what was being said.

After a while, she couldn't write any more, then she couldn't speak coherently, just baby talk and noises with a word here and there.

Finally, she recognized no one, regressed into her own world that was somewhere behind her empty eyes and spent her days and nights in a chair, a bed, on a couch, docile, wherever she was led and placed, fed and diapered, never asking for anything, an unhappy infant in an adult body, her mind and soul gone. Once in a while she would cry. We never knew why.

And so I have a special fear that haunts me whenever I forget something.

I tell myself that it's the normal aging process, that it happens to everyone, that I was always very bad at remembering faces and names, and yet, the fear is there.

I am at more risk than those who don't have a history of this unspeakable horror in their families but there is nothing I can do about it. I make bad jokes about leaving instructions to contact Dr. Kevorkian if ``it'' happens to me, but I am not really joking. I wouldn't want to live speechless, mindless, infant in diapers, without dignity, without a mind.

Alzheimer's is a nightmare. It destroys the mind. It erases the individual. It strikes indiscriminately and there is no warning, no prevention, no cure.

It is almost an epidemic - the number of people with Alzheimer's is expected to reach 15 million during the next 25 years.

It strikes 7 percent of people older than 65 and 40 percent of those older than 80.

Yet there is no urgency about this scourge, no public awareness, no marches, no ribbons to be worn at public events, no demonstrations protesting government neglect, no movie stars leading crusades and raising millions to cure, help, nurture, comfort the victims.

I envy the cohesion and political power of the gay community. They speak with a unified voice that makes the politicians sit up and listen. AIDS has become the sacred cow of diseases. Everyone is aware of it - it has become a movement, a cause, a sacred mission for countless hundreds of thousands dedicated and concerned individuals who will probably never get AIDS, but many of whom will be struck by Alzheimer's.

Mass marches against AIDS draw tens of thousands. TV screens show demonstrations at the White House demanding government action. The budget cuts last summer never touched any of the funds linked to AIDS.

The unfairness of the overwhelming concern for AIDS and the lukewarm interest for diseases like Alzheimer's is even more striking when one considers that AIDS is unique in that it is almost 100 percent preventable.

It is spread by unprotected intercourse and by sharing needles with AIDS-infected addicts. Infection occurs when blood from an infected individual intermingles with the blood of an uninfected one.

Certainly, there are tragic accidents when contaminated blood is used in transfusions or the like, but this is a small percentage of cases. Sex can be made safe by using a condom. It isn't much of a sacrifice - I am sure that any prospective Alzheimer's sufferer would gladly wear a sheath over any part of his or her body to avoid getting it. I would.

A recent news item tells of a new experimental drug that has been shown to drastically improve human memory. It was invented at UC Irvine - an ampakine compound trademarked as a pill under the name Ampalex.

It has been tested successfully and will be tested some more next year. After that there will be more tests, followed by the usual long approval process and, who knows, it might even be available in five or 10 years?

Can you imagine a drug that had similar results in treating AIDS that would be withheld from the public for 10 years? I can't. There would be demonstrations, riots, hearings. There would be action - quick and immediate.

There would be everything that isn't happening with diseases that affect many times as many lives as AIDS, that are not preventable, and strike at random regardless of the lifestyle of the victim.

I wish the AIDS victims well. I admire and envy the gay community their political clout. They have defended their own and they have educated America that AIDS imperils us all. I can only wish - in vain - that we, the rest of us, had the resources and the abilities to market the tragedy of Alzheimer's half as effectively.