"If you have a brain, you should be thinking about Alzheimer’s. Not if you have the gene, if you have a brain. Because we don’t know who and why, right?"

That’s award-winning journalist, author, and former First Lady of California Maria Shriver, speaking to Nevada Week from Cleveland Clinic Lou Ruvo Center for Brain Health.

About 6.7 million people are living with Alzheimer’s disease in the United States. Two-thirds of them are women. In a system where women’s health issues can be overlooked or under-treated, Shriver is an impassioned advocate for the cause.

"I saw an issue that people weren’t championing," she said. "I saw something that could be rectified in my lifetime for my daughters’ generation. And it galvanized me. It enraged me. And it motivated me."

Shriver’s journey into advocating for Alzheimer's patients and caretakers started with her father Sargent Shriver’s diagnosis in 2003. He lived eight years with the disease before his death in 2011.

"This is the smartest human being I know. This is a man whose brain created the Peace Corps, who came up with Head Start, who came up with Job Corps, who ran the war on poverty. Who ran for president, ran for vice president, and now, doesn’t know who I am," Shriver said. "How does that happen to a brain, especially a brain this intelligent?"

She continued, "So the more questions I asked, it led me down this path of realizing this wasn’t a normal part of aging, this was something we should all care about. It led me to learning about the brain, led me to understanding that women's brains were under-researched, it led me to understanding that women's health was under researched, under funded."

Shriver would go on to lobby for more research while also raising awareness of the need to support patients, their families, and caregivers. The list of her achievements is extensive, and it includes her work on “Shriver Report: A Woman’s Nation Takes on Alzheimer’s” and executive-producing HBO’s “Alzheimer’s Project.” Shriver has also testified in Congress and instigated the creation of the White House Initiative on Women’s Health Research in 2023.

"This is not a political issue. It’s a human issue." 

- Maria Shriver, Founder, Women's Alzheimer’s Movement
 

"I am very committed to working across the aisle. This is not a political issue. It’s a human issue. I care for a woman who is of a different political party who gets breast cancer, has a heart attack, who has osteoporosis, who has anxiety and depression, it’s human beings," she told Nevada Week host Amber Renee Dixon. 

"I mean, for God’s sake, can’t we agree on that?"

Shriver is the founder of the Women's Alzheimer’s Movement (WAM), an organization whose mission is to advance gender-based research, treatment, disease prevention, and education for brain health. WAM formed a partnership with Cleveland Clinic and, in 2020, opened the nation’s first women’s Alzheimer’s disease prevention center at Cleveland Clinic Lou Ruvo Center for Brain Health.

The WAM Prevention and Research Center has seen approximately 460 women from 31 states since its opening. More than half of the patients are enrolled in research on the ways stress, estrogen, and changing risk factors impact Alzheimer’s disease. The center also provides caretaker support.

The Women’s Alzheimer’s Movement Forum was held on May 19, 2025. The event raised awareness of the various ways Alzheimer's disease disproportionately impacts both female patients and caregivers. It recognized leaders and individuals making a difference in the fight against Alzheimer’s. Grants were awarded to researchers in this field. All elements Shriver says are critically important to understanding the disease and what can be done to prevent it.

"I don’t know if I’ll find the answers I’m looking for in my lifetime. But I know that because of this work, when my daughters and their generation are my age, they’ll get different answers in the doctor’s office due to a lot of the work we’re doing."