Raising Awareness For Dementia Goal Of Pickleball Tournament

ST. CLOUD (WJON News) -- It was a chance to help raise awareness for a good cause at the Whitney Recreation Center on Saturday. The Dementia Community Action Network (DCAN) held its first annual Dinking for DCAN pickleball tournament.

Paul Habstritt, WJON

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DCAN Care Navigator Tami Kolbinger says playing pickleball is a good fit for them:

"So we wanted to do a pickleball tournament because it is physical activity, there is also counting and keeping track which is cognitive activity so it's a good fit for our clinic because you're using your physical body, you're using your brain and you need both of those things to try to outrun dementia."

Kolbinger says events like the tournament are so important to raise awareness for dementia and the impact it can have on people's lives. She says it is important to get people talking about dementia:

"It helps to fight that stigma, there's still so much stigma around dementia as well as mental health so when we talk about awareness it is getting people to talk about it and normalize it so nobody has to be afraid of dementia moving forward."

Paul Habstritt, WJON

Kolbinger says dementia is a unique disease and that if you know one person with any more of dementia they are the only person with that type. She says it all depends on what the person has going on cognitively or what they had going on in their past.

Paul Habstrittt, WJON

In addition to the pickleball tournament there were informational booths and raffles with prizes. DCAN raised about $10,000 for dementia awareness with the tournament.

Paul Habstritt, WJON