The death of award-winning fantasy writer Terry Pratchett on Thursday has revived an awareness campaign about Alzheimer's disease on various social media platforms, generating as much as £28,000 in charity 24 hours after the author's death.
According to UK Online newspaper The Guardian, donations poured in immediately after the story about Prachett's death went viral on Facebook and Twitter. Pratchett passed away on his bed due to complications from Alzheimer's disease. The 66-year-old author was surrounded by his loved ones, close friends and pet cat during the time of his death.
Pratchett's publisher Lynsey Dalladay made a petition to support the Research Institute for the Care of Older People (Rice), an organization dedicated to find cure to a disease that usually triggered dementia in its terminal stage. Dalladay's appeal spread like wild fire through the Internet as 1,600 people donated £28,053 to the charity by Friday noon.
"The outpouring of love for Terry and his books has been completely amazing and we're all overwhelmed," Dalladay said in an interview with the Guardian. "It is completely heartbreaking to think Terry is no longer here, he was such a force in all our lives."
Professor Roy Jones, who chaired the Rice Research, called the outpouring of support as the fans' greatest tribute to Pratchett, whom he met in 2008 and considered instrumental in creating awareness of the disease to broader audience.
"Clearly it's a tribute to him," Jones said this morning. "People want to donate, and we're getting money in euros and dollars and pounds. Terry and his family knew we were trying to expand our research program, and that they decided it should be us is very generous."
"He has really set a marker. He was relatively shy in many ways. He didn't necessarily seek a lot of publicity before his diagnosis, but he faced up to his diagnosis by saying he was going to talk about it openly. He may not have realized how much his message was going to take off; that people would be surprised that someone of his profile would speak out."
Alzheimer's disease is a chronic neurodegenerative disease that results to 60 to 70 percent of dementia. Memory loss is the first known symptom of the disease that tends to worsen over time, causing disorientation, behavioral issues, problems with language and loss of motivation.
Pratchett won his early bouts with the disease to become one of the most influential and successful writers in his era, with his 2011 masterpiece Snuff selling 55,000 copies in the first three days - the third fastest adult-audience novel in United Kingdom.
