Seth Rogen has spent his movie career making young people laugh. Now he wants to make them think—specifically, about what they can do today to reduce their risk of developing Alzheimer's disease years from now.
It might seem like an unusually serious focus for the comedian, but Alzheimer's is very personal for Seth: The disease runs in his wife Lauren Miller Rogen's family. Her grandparents both died from the condition in the 1990s, and her late mother, Adele Miller, developed young-onset Alzheimer's when she was 55.
Lauren and Seth had been dating for only a few months when Lauren's parents flew to Los Angeles from their home in central Florida to celebrate Lauren's 24th birthday in 2006. It was during that weekend that Lauren saw changes in her mother's behavior that she had observed years before in her grandparents.
“I'd had inklings. At my college graduation a couple of years earlier, my mom told me the same story a few times, and I just had this sinking feeling,” Lauren says. “I didn't say anything at the time. I was hoping I was wrong.” Two weeks after she graduated, Lauren moved to Los Angeles to pursue her career as an actor and screenwriter. Several months later, when her parents came to visit for the first time, Lauren noticed more things. Her mother kept repeating herself and seemed vaguely confused. “After I dropped them off at the airport,” she says, “I went back to Seth's to hang out and just cried. It was the first time I'd really talked about it.”
Adele Miller was a “superhero mom,” her daughter says. “She taught first grade and still managed to be a full-time parent. She was always there for my activities and events. She was the class mom and drove me everywhere and had such a vibrant and active mind.” Adele retired from teaching after her diagnosis, and shortly after that Lauren's father took early retirement so he could care for her.
“During each visit, Seth and I would notice that she had deteriorated further,” Lauren says. “Eventually my mom forgot everything—how to eat, walk, and dress herself. She didn't know what a chair was for or that the floor wasn't for sitting. She couldn't remember what a person or a dog was. She had a lot of trouble using the bathroom, which was heartbreaking for me but even more so for my dad. He was carrying the full load, all the cooking, cleaning, dressing, and caring for her. And I felt like I couldn't help since I was so far away.”
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On the Brain & Life podcast, Lauren shares her mother’s journey with Alzheimer's and how her caretaker experience inspired her to found HFC, a foundation with the mission to provide care and resources for families affected by the condition.
In 2012, Seth and Lauren moved her parents to a duplex near them in Los Angeles, with room for a round-the-clock caregiver. By that time, Adele had lost the ability to speak. “We couldn't have conversations, but there were sparks of recognition,” Lauren says. “I don't think she knew I was her daughter, but there were moments of love with eye contact. I struggled with sitting there silently holding her hand, so I started reading to her. She liked Danielle Steel novels when she was younger, so I started reading those to her, which was kind of funny when the books got a little sexy. But I was lucky to have my parents close by—and so much support from Seth.”
Over the course of her disease, Lauren's mother slowly disappeared. “She was both very much alive and physically here, but at the same time she lost every ability,” says Lauren. “In the end, she was a shell. Everything that made her an extraordinary person had been forgotten. That's the nature of the disease.” Adele died on February 1, 2020, at age 69.
Advocacy Idea
Shortly before Lauren moved her parents to Los Angeles, a close friend of hers and Seth's, screenwriter Matthew Bass, approached them with the idea of putting on a variety show to raise money for Alzheimer's disease programs. “Seth and Lauren attended many Alzheimer's events, but most were geared toward significantly older audiences,” recalls Bass, who worked with Seth on several films, including Knocked Up and Pineapple Express. “Their friends wanted to support them and Lauren's family, and given their comedic skills and other talents, we thought a variety show was the perfect vehicle.”
While their friends planned the show, Seth and Lauren began telling the story of their experience with the disease at events sponsored by the Alzheimer's Association. In 2011, they shared their message with a national audience during an interview with Larry King. Inspired by the flood of emails and reactions on social media from young people who related to their story, they started advertising the variety show on Twitter as well as on radio and television.
The first event was held in January 2012 and featured Bruno Mars, Paul Rudd, Jack Black, and Aziz Ansari. Guests sat on benches rather than at tables and munched on grilled cheese sandwiches and tacos from food trucks. “It was fun and exciting, and people were energized by our message of laughing in the face of Alzheimer's,” says Lauren. For each subsequent event, Lauren and Seth created themes. “We've had a prom, a house party, and even a bar mitzvah,” she says.
Based on the success of the first event and the response from the King interview, Seth and Lauren decided to do more than host fundraisers. “Seth was making a connection with all these young people,” says Lauren, “so we thought we could develop programs to activate younger people around the disease and give them a space to share their stories.”
That was the seed for Hilarity for Charity: Bringing Light to Alzheimer's (now known as HFC), a national nonprofit organization that focuses on supporting families, educating young people about living a brain-healthy life, and inspiring the next generation of Alzheimer's advocates. Since establishing the foundation, Seth and Lauren have assembled several panels of experts to guide the group, including a care advisory board and a scientific advisory board.
“I had done charitable work before, but this was the first time I was contributing to a cause just by sharing what Lauren and I were seeing and experiencing,” Seth says. “As painful as it was, it was very easy to talk about during interviews because it was happening to our family. It didn't require research or memorizing statistics.”
It was soon clear that HFC was filling a gap in a landscape of Alzheimer's charities largely focused on people over the age of 65. “The personal reaction we were getting was huge. People were coming up to me at events or on the street to talk about Alzheimer's disease just as often as they wanted to talk about my movies,” Seth says. “Some were caretakers for their family members; some were concerned about their own risk due to genetics and family history. It was clear we were reaching a lot of young people who had been underserved when it came to Alzheimer's.”
Grateful that they had the resources to provide 24-hour care for Lauren's mother, the couple decided to fund caregiving for families, in partnership with the elder care service Home Instead. To date, HFC In-Home Care Grants have provided more than 325,000 hours of in-home care.
“With Alzheimer's, you can't ever leave your loved one alone. Our grants give people a few hours of respite a week,” says Lauren. “We thought this was the best way to make the biggest impact.”
HFC also hosts a range of support groups for family members, born out of Lauren's own experience. “In one of the first support groups I attended, I listened as people in their fifties talked about caring for their mothers, who were 85,” she says. “I was, like, 25 years old. We were in very different boats. Also, my support group was once a month and 45 minutes from my house. To make sure our programs pair people in similar situations and give them easy access, we put them online. We've been doing that since 2014.”
The organization reaches out to young caregivers through social and other media, and through partnerships with other Alzheimer's-related organizations. “Many caregivers are referred to our support groups and care-grant program by friends and family as well, and there's always an uptick in interest when we promote HFC in interviews or on our social platforms,” Lauren says.
Since the beginning of the pandemic, HFC has increased its grants and expanded its support group availability by 55 percent. “It's been so hard for caregivers,” Lauren says. “Even people who had relief before the pandemic may not be getting it much anymore, and so many people are not able to visit their loved ones in care centers. This is not a disease that can be faced alone, and these days we're all spending a lot of time alone, so we wanted to make sure everyone is feeling as supported as they can be.”
HFC has a comedy special currently streaming on Netflix. The charity also has taken its popular live benefits online: A '70s-themed game show in October 2020 hosted by Rogen—and featuring a friendly face-off among celebrity team captains Anna Faris, Billy Eichner, Craig Robinson, Elizabeth Banks, and Jim Gaffigan—raised more than $325,000. Events like these are the largest single source of revenue for HFC; other financial support comes from foundations, corporate partnerships, and individual donations.
In addition to providing caregiver grants and support groups, HFC funds research and education about lifelong brain health. “Some research says that one in three cases of Alzheimer's may be preventable by adopting brain-healthy habits. That's huge. I think about it every day,” says Lauren. “I try my very best to live a brain-healthy life. I work out daily and track my sleep to be sure I get enough. I limit the amount of sugar I consume, and I'm always trying to learn new things and challenge my brain.” She and Seth have taken up pottery, including making their own glazes. “It's essentially like a chemistry class. I also recently inherited my great-grandmother's piano, and I'm slowly relearning to play an instrument I haven't touched since I was 12.”
Rogen does many of the same things. “People are not taught how to take care of their brains from childhood and throughout life,” he says. “They know that if they don't want a heart attack, don't eat fatty foods; if they don't want lung cancer, then don't smoke cigarettes. But if you ask people what they can do to keep their brains healthy, they don't know. At HFC, we make brain health as accessible and friendly as possible.”
Next year, under the guidance of a newly formed science advisory board including Richard Isaacson, MD, FAAN, associate professor of neurology at New York's Weill Cornell-Presbyterian Medical Center and director of its Alzheimer's disease prevention clinic, Seth and Lauren plan to launch a website that will serve as a brain health portal for young people. “You can take care of your brain, just like your heart and your lungs,” says Seth. “It's never too early to start.”