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by Varshini Chellapilla 

Peggy Williams has seen her husband only three times since March. Jack Williams, who was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease in 2013, is a resident at a long-term care facility that locked down at the very beginning of the coronavirus pandemic. 

The last time they met, a plexiglass wall stood between them as they maintained a distance of six feet from one another. With Jack’s hearing problems, the masks, and the traffic from the road, Peggy had to yell to be heard.  

“I didn’t even know that Jack started to gain a lot of weight and his clothes weren’t fitting him until the first time on the porch visit,” Peggy said. “Because I’d only seen him from the shoulders up on FaceTime. And Jack, of course, can’t communicate with me. His verbal skills are almost gone.” 

At the end of the visit, Jack was upset. He couldn’t understand why his wife had to leave.  

“They’ve kept Jack safe from COVID but, as far as emotionally and the mental toll, it’s been hell,” Peggy said. “It’s almost like he doesn’t exist anymore. The world just gets smaller and smaller, and it’s been really hard.” 

Mehek Dedhia, left, and Hannah Cao

By Varshini Chellapilla

 Two student researchers from the Penn Memory Center delivered key presentations on the measurement of gender and the effects of stigma in Alzheimer’s research at the Alzheimer’s Association International Conference – Neuroscience Next (AAIC-NN) in November.  

Mehek Dedhia, a sophomore at the University of Pennsylvania studying neuroscience, and Hannah Cao, a Master of Social Work graduate student, presented at the neuroscience conference that promotes the work of early-career researchers and students in the field.  

Dedhia and Cao’s presentations were produced under Shana Stites, PsyD, MA, MS, a researcher at the Penn Program on Precision Medicine for the Brain (P3MB). Dr. Stites’s research aims to understand the ways in which quality of life and psychological wellbeing can be improved for those with Alzheimer’s disease dementia. Her work focuses on how aspects of identity (such as age, gender, and race) affect the disease experience.  

By Varshini Chellapilla

Andrew Peterson, PhD, an affiliate researcher at the Penn Program on Precision Medicine for the Brain (P3MB), was announced as one of the recipients of the State Council of Higher Education (SCHEV) 2021 Outstanding Faculty Award.  

The award recognizes faculty at Virginia’s institutions of higher learning for the highest standards of teaching, scholarship and service.  

By Cait Kearney

Why does disease progress faster in some people than in others? Why do some individuals have a higher risk of developing Alzheimer’s disease?  

To answer questions like these, Corey McMillan, PhD, an affiliated researcher of the Penn Memory Center and associate professor of neurology at Penn’s Perelman School of Medicine, is studying the diversity of the way neurodegenerative diseases, such as Alzheimer’s disease, manifest and present themselves in people.  

This diversity is referred to as heterogeneity. If researchers can better understand why, for example, one patient begins demonstrating symptoms of Alzheimer’s disease at the age of 65, but another patient begins demonstrating symptoms at the age of 85, then it may lead to more personalized treatments for individuals and improved clinical outcomes. 

Dr. McMillan studies the heterogeneity of neurodegenerative diseases by examining large sets of DNA samples.  

A 2016 video introducing the Cognitive Comedy program.

By Varshini Chellapilla  

On the Tuesday before Halloween, Glinda the Good Witch, an Italian hotelier with a penchant for wine, a princess with rainbow hair, the Wicked Witch, and an absent-minded man joined together gathered on a video call as part of the Penn Memory Center’s Cognitive Comedy program.  

Participants of the program dressed in costumes or assumed different personas to engage in a weekly improv comedy class hosted by Meg Kalafsky, a program and research coordinator at PMC.  

“I think that improv is helpful because it makes you think creatively. You need to quickly be able to bounce around different topics,” Kalafsky said. “I don’t think improv comedy is going to cure Alzheimer’s. But what we’re going to do is meet your progression pleasant.”  

By Varshini Chellapilla

 When the coronavirus pandemic began, there was great concern about the allocation of scarce healthcare resources like ventilators, ICU beds and hospital staff.  

In large cities like New York, health policy experts feared that hospitals would be overwhelmed by patients needing lifesaving treatment. In some rural areas, health policy experts were also concerned many hospitals did not have the resources they needed to care for patients seriously affected by the novel coronavirus.   

“In public health emergencies, there’s always a concern about finite resources,” said Andrew Peterson, PhD, a researcher with the Penn Program on Precision Medicine for the Brain. “How you distribute those resources to patients in need is ethically complicated.”  

Dr. Peterson, an assistant professor of philosophy at George Mason University, in collaboration with colleagues at The University of Manchester, conducted a study to understand the opinions of average Americans on these allocation decisions in the pandemic. The study, titled “Public attitudes toward allocating scarce resources in the COVID-19 pandemic,” was published on Nov. 4 in scientific journal PLOS ONE.  

By Abigail Ahearn

Around the time Roy Hamilton, MD, MS, was completing his neurology training, his father began developing memory-related issues. Dr. Hamilton noticed that his father was repeating himself in a conversation, forgetting important names, and having trouble with financial management and route finding.  

At the 2020 Alzheimer’s Disease and Related Disorders (ADRD) Forum on Nov. 5, Dr. Hamilton spoke about his personal experience with the disease. 

“Even though at the time I was training to become a neurologist, there were a lot of thoughts that went through our minds and different ways of framing what was happening to my father, that sort of got in the way of a clear-eyed view of what was actually happening,” he said. “A lot of thoughts went through our minds that may have gotten in the way of him getting the kind of care that he needed initially, even though he was the father of a neurologist and someone who is going to become a cognitive behavioral neurologist who sees patients with Alzheimer’s disease.” 

Dr. Hamilton is currently  a physician researcher at the Penn Memory Center and served as the keynote speaker at the ADRD forum hosted by the Pennsylvania Department of Aging. 

By Varshini Chellapilla 

The Penn Memory Center (PMC) will continue research on aducanumab after an independent panel advised against Food and Drug Administration approval of Biogen’s Alzheimer’s disease drug, stating a lack of convincing evidence of efficacy.  

On Nov. 6, the 11-member advisory panel of neurologists and other medical experts discussed and examined the data from the clinical trials as well as other aspects of Biogen’s case in a seven-hour-long virtual meeting. Of the two Phase 3 trials, only one trial, EMERGE, showed successful results. The panel argued that that the single positive aducanumab trial was not enough evidence to support the drug’s potential success.  

PMC Co-Director David Wolk, MD, said the results of the advisory panel do not imply the ineffectiveness of the drug.  

“Instead, it means that there was not enough evidence of efficacy, in the opinion of the committee, to approve at this time,” Dr. Wolk said. “In fact, the data from aducanumab and some other recent trials of drugs with similar mechanisms suggest that targeting amyloid may indeed influence disease progression and ultimately have benefit.” 

By Varshini Chellapilla

Mitali Purohit, a clinical research coordinator for the Penn Memory Center, left the center on Oct. 30.

Previously, she worked at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center where she was involved with clinical trials for a smoking cessation study for schizophrenia.

Purohit studied psychology at Mumbai University in Mumbai, India and earned her Master’s degree in psychology from Chatham University in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

She began working at PMC in 2018. Purohit was responsible for administering cognitive and neurological assessments to research participants and patients.

“It was a pleasure to work with Mitali,” Dr. Dawn Mechanic-Hamilton said. “She was a great team member. She will be missed by the PMC, and we wish her a joyful time with her family and the best of luck in her future career.”

By Varshini Chellapilla

Anna Kozlowska, a master of social service intern at the Penn Memory Center, held up a picture in front of her camera. The picture showed a young woman playing in the guitar on a park bench. She posed simple questions to her audience of ten – Who is the young woman? Why was she there? What was she doing?  

An hour later, the young guitarist’s story had been told by the participants: She was a musician who missed her husband while he was away at war; she was singing a song about the beauty of nature; she was someone who loved making music.  

“It’s kind of like making a necklace from beads,” Kozlowska said. “We kind of string our thoughts and feelings together, and we read as it goes.”