Poems of Inner Strength
Spoken by People Living with Mild Cognitive Impairment and their Care Partners
Compiled by Brianna Morgan, MSN, CRNP
An Alzheimer's Disease Research Center
Compiled by Brianna Morgan, MSN, CRNP
By Cait Kearney
Experts debated positron emission tomography (PET) as a suitable surrogate endpoint for clinically meaningful outcomes and accelerated approval of Alzheimer’s drugs at an event held by the Internal Ethics Committee of the Alzheimer’s Clinical Trials Consortium (ACTC).
By Cait Kearney and Matt Smith
You’ve heard of Alzheimer’s disease, but what about LATE?
Over 30% of autopsied brains of people older than 80 show the presence of LATE, and 55% of people living with Alzheimer’s disease also have LATE.
“LATE is a unique and highly prevalent brain disease,” said Michael Tran Duong, PhD, University of Pennsylvania researcher and medical student.
By Meghan McCarthy
Virginia Man-Yee Lee, PhD, MSc, MBA, is one of the world’s most recognized and decorated researchers.
As director of the Center for Neurodegenerative Disease Research (CNDR) at the University of Pennsylvania, Dr. Lee studies the role of different proteins in various neurodegenerative disorders of aging, including Alzheimer’s disease. And for each of the more than 1,000 research publications which she has authored, she has also been cited in nearly 200,000 articles by others.
In recognition of that work, Research.com ranked her among the world’s top 100 scientists and the No. 2 female scientist. She has been awarded dozens of academic honors, notably the Breakthrough Prize in Life Sciences and its associated $3 million grant from a selection committee including Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg and Google’s Sergey Brin.
Yet, throughout her life, Dr. Lee has had to prove her value.
To her mother.
To her employers.
To the entire scientific community.
She earned the Breakthrough Prize in 2020, but she says her true breakthrough came when she began believing in herself.
The Penn Memory Center is offering a variety of free programs for people living with cognitive impairment, caregivers, and their loved ones. Registration for the following programs is open:
Mindfulness and Meditation
Thursdays, 1:00 – 2:00 p.m., starting Jan. 19, virtual
Explore short meditation and mindfulness exercises that help reduce stress and ground you in the present moment.
RSVP for Mindfulness and Meditation
Cognitive Comedy
Tuesdays, 1:30 – 3:00 p.m., starting Jan. 24, virtual
Cognitive Comedy is an improv comedy workshop for people with cognitive impairment and their loved ones.
By Meghan McCarthy
A team of University of Pennsylvania researchers found that Black Americans are aging faster than white Americans, and inequities in socioeconomic resources is the main cause.
Scientists measure age with more data than just a birthdate. Biological age accounts for the various experiences in life that may slow or quicken the way your body ages.
“There are some people who are 80, super healthy, and live for many years. Then, there are 65-year-olds that already have many health problems,” said Isabel Yannatos, PhD candidate. “Biological age reflects the differences in how people develop health problems as they age.”
On January 6, the Food and Drug Adminstration (FDA) approved the Alzheimer’s drug lecanemab via its Accelerated Approval pathway.
The Accelerated Approval pathway allows for faster approval of drugs that are used to treat serious conditions and diseases while maintaining safety standards. Lecanemab, branded as “Leqembi,” was found to slow cognitive decline in people living with early-stage Alzheimer’s disease.
By Meghan McCarthy
Smartwatches can quickly tell users how many steps they’ve taken, what’s next on their calendar, or even how well they’re sleeping. But could they be used to measure empathy?
If so, the data could be an innovative tool in the understudied form of dementia called bv FTD, or behavioral variant frontotemporal dementia, said Penn Memory Center Clark Scholar Emma Rhodes, PhD.
Persons living with bv FTD often lose compassion for the people to whom they are closest, such as their spouses or children. Many struggle to notice social cues and as a result tend to respond inappropriately or not at all to emotional situations.
“Empathy requires being able to notice when someone is upset and identify when it’s appropriate to show compassion,” said Dr. Rhodes. “Because this requires many brain regions, it’s hard to scientifically pin down the mechanisms behind this.”