FOR RELEASE: Wednesday, September 16, 2026
Occasion: World Alzheimer’s Month runs through September 2026
Media contact: Jessica Cannon, 512-766-7231, jessica@cannonlightmedia.com

With World Alzheimer's Month underway, Austin CPA and Certified Dementia Practitioner Jessica Cannon of The Proactive Caregiver says families lose money and legal options in the first year after a dementia diagnosis, not only at the end of the disease.

AUSTIN, Texas, Sept. 16, 2026 – With World Alzheimer's Month underway, Austin CPA and Certified Dementia Practitioner Jessica Cannon is urging families to treat a dementia diagnosis as a financial and legal deadline, not only a medical event.

Cannon, founder of The Proactive Caregiver, spent 28 years in finance, including 14 years as a licensed CPA and corporate accounting work at a $12 billion public-company subsidiary. She later became her mother's essential caregiver through four years of misdiagnoses that ended in frontotemporal dementia.

"Most Alzheimer's coverage talks about the brain," Cannon said. "Almost nobody talks about the 12-month window when a family can still sign documents and protect the estate."

Texas is among the states hardest hit. Alzheimer's Association state figures show hundreds of thousands of Texans aged 65 and older living with Alzheimer's, more than a million unpaid caregivers, and billions in Medicaid costs tied to dementia care. Nationally, the Association estimates more than 7 million Americans living with Alzheimer's and more than 12 million providing unpaid care, with total care costs projected at $409 billion in 2026.

Cannon's published practice figures, drawn from that same cost landscape, put the price of reactive dementia caregiving near $750,000 over a lifetime. Planning at diagnosis, her materials say, is associated with $200,000 to $350,000 preserved versus waiting until crisis. In Texas, she cites average memory-care costs of about $91,248 a year. Family caregivers, she notes, lose an estimated $35,000 a year in wages when hours drop or work ends.

Those numbers matter in September because families often spend World Alzheimer's Month looking for support groups and facility tours. Cannon says those steps are useful and still late if powers of attorney, HIPAA permissions, advance directives, and institution-specific forms are unsigned.

"I don't do sympathy. I do strategy," Cannon said. "The money a family loses can sometimes be rebuilt. The relationships they destroy while fighting over an unsigned plan are much harder to repair."

Cannon now coaches families nationwide from Austin and teaches the Proactive Caregiver Method, a five-pillar framework covering financial wellness, caregiver health, dementia navigation, family dynamics, and system advocacy. She is the author of The Proactive Caregiver: Stop Reacting To Life, Start Living Proactively, host of more than 110 podcast episodes, and a speaker who has reached more than 3,000+ caregivers.

She is available throughout September for interviews on diagnosis-day planning, sibling conflict over money, memory-care contracts, and why a family CPA is usually called last.

Media contactJessica Lizel Cannon, CPA, CDPThe Proactive Caregiver / Cannon Light Media, LLCAustin, Texas512-766-7231Jessica@Cannonlightmedia.comhttps://proactivecaregiver.com

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About The Proactive Caregiver

The Proactive Caregiver helps families handle the financial and legal mechanics of caring for a parent with dementia, through coaching, courses and speaking. Founded by Jessica Cannon, CPA and Certified Dementia Practitioner, based in Austin, Texas and working with families nationwide.

Media contact: Jessica Cannon, 512-766-7231, jessica@cannonlightmedia.com