Clinic falsely told dozens they had Alzheimer's, suits say

TOLEDO, Ohio — Shawn Blazsek knew a string of concussions from high school football and boxing was catching up with him. He would go days without sleeping and was forgetting how to tie his shoes. Still, at age 33, he was stunned after being told he had Alzheimer's disease.

He started planning out who would take care of his four kids if something happened to his wife, and thought about how hard it would be for them when he could no longer recognize his family. So he stuffed fistfuls of sleeping pills into a bottle and wrote himself a note, vowing to swallow all of them when he wasn't able to remember the names of his children.

That day never came. Nine months later, he learned that the memory-loss center director who diagnosed him didn't have a medical or psychology license needed to do so. Then another test confirmed he did not have Alzheimer's.

He is one of more than 50 people suing the now-closed clinic's former director and its owner, saying they, too, were told they had Alzheimer's or another form of dementia. Most now know it's not true, while a few are awaiting confirmation.

Some say they spent months undergoing treatment while planning out their final years. Some quit their jobs, sold possessions or took one last special trip. One killed himself.

Blazsek crammed years of fatherly advice into a matter of months, showing his son how to check the oil on a car and teaching his wife about the household finances.

"I was preparing her to be a single mom," he said.

The couple figured he had no more than 10 years to live and even less time before his memory was gone.

"Here I am, thinking I'm going to be a widow at 43. What am I going to do?" said his wife, Jennifer. "Who's going to teach my boys how to shave?

Who's going to play ball with them?"So far, the case has yet to result in any charges against Sherry-Ann Jenkins, who opened the Toledo Clinic Cognitive Center in early 2015 through the Toledo Clinic, a multi-specialty medical center with more than 150 doctors.