JEFFERSON CITY — While advocates for dementia care services in Missouri emphasize the need for a state dementia care coordinator, legislators raised concerns over the state’s ability to fund the position in a committee hearing on Thursday.

House Bill 2149, sponsored by Rep. Travis Wilson, R-St. Charles, would establish a dementia services coordinator as a full-time position in the state’s Department of Health and Senior Services.

“The reason we want to focus on this particular office within the Department of Health is we want to focus on early detection, diagnosis, risk reduction and quality of care,” Wilson said.

The dementia care coordinator office could help caregivers and patients interface with a one-stop shop to connect them with resources to deal with the disease, he added.

The House Committee on Health and Mental Health heard testimony mostly in favor of the bill on Thursday.

Sandy Marshall, volunteer for the Alzheimer’s Association, testified about her experience with her husband’s early-onset Alzheimer’s, emphasizing the importance of establishing the position to help with early disease detection and aid rural areas with little resources.

“Our state services for dementia are scattered across various agencies, pieces of a puzzle that don’t quite fit together,” Marshall said. “We have the resources, but we lack the connective tissue. This bill creates that link.”

Marshall’s husband was diagnosed in Florida, where Marshall says resources for dementia patients are more plentiful and accessible.

“Florida has two brain buses,” Marshall said. “They’re kind of like a mammogram bus or a blood donor bus. They go around to the rural communities or inner cities and they give you the Mini-Cogs.”

A Mini-Cog is a screening tool for detecting cognitive impairment and early dementia.

Marshall also used Florida’s dementia care coordinator to help create a plan for her own mother with dementia after she suffered a stroke.

House members acknowledged the benefits of this bill, but raised concerns over space in the state budget to create another position.

Many legislators questioned whether the job of a dementia services coordinator could be done through existing positions or allocations.

Rep. Tony Harbison, R-Arcadia, said some do not realize the dire situation the state of Missouri is in as far as its budget.

“I am sympathetic, but also realistically, if we could work through and meet the same need through emergency management or some type like that, something that currently exists, I would be willing to go as far a i need to make that happen,” Harbison said.

There are currently 120,000 Missourians, 65 and older, living with a form of dementia.

“I understand the budget thing, but my question to you is, what’s it worth for you to have another five or ten years with your loved one?” asked Bobby Marshall, Sandy Marshall’s husband.

This is the second time the bill has been heard by the committee. It passed last year unanimously but was taken out during the budget conference.