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By Jason Karlawish 

2021 was a big book year for me.  

Yes of course, there was mine. Conversations and correspondence with readers of The Problem of Alzheimer’s were enlightening and inspiring. So too was reading the following.  

Three books rounded out my understanding of the experiences of either being a person with disabling and progressive cognitive impairments caused by diseases such as Alzheimer’s disease, or of caring for that person.  

As the year comes to a close, the faculty and staff of the Penn Memory Center offer you their favorite books they read in 2021. Click the book title to learn more and purchase.

Hannah Norman/KHN Photo Illustration

In the middle of a rainy Michigan night, 88-year-old Dian Wurdock walked out the front door of her son’s home in Grand Rapids, barefoot and coatless. Her destination was unknown even to herself.

Wurdock was several years into a dementia diagnosis that turned out to be Alzheimer’s disease. By luck, her son woke up and found her before she stepped too far down the street. As the Alzheimer’s progressed, so did her wandering and with it, her children’s anxiety.

“I was losing it,” said her daughter, Deb Weathers-Jablonski. “I needed to keep her safe, especially at night.”

Patricia St. Ledger, MS, RD, LDN, describes the importance of a brain-healthy diet at any age and provides examples of meals that fit into a variety of lifestyles and diets. Her presentation was part of the Penn Memory Center’s Healthy Aging Series.

Nineteenth century romantic poet John Keats was influenced by more than just nature and beauty — he was intimately familiar with disease and medicine.

At the special medical humanities event John Keats: Scientist and Poet hosted by the Kelly Writers House, Penn Memory Center Co-director Jason Karlawish, MD, and Penn English Professor Toni Bowers, PhD, led a conversation exploring the ways in which Keats’ brief medical experience shaped him as a poet.

If a son heard that his father had an increased risk of Alzheimer’s disease, based on a beta-amyloid PET scan, he would likely experience negative emotions such as sadness, worry, disappointment, and concern for his own risk of cognitive decline. 

By Varshini Chellapilla and Lindsey Keener  

If you were told your spouse’s risk level for developing Alzheimer’s disease, how would you react, knowing you would become their closest caregiver? If you were to be told your sibling’s risk for developing Alzheimer’s disease, how would you react, knowing you share some genetic makeup? 

Emily Largent, PhD, JD, RN, member of the Penn Program on Precision Medicine for the Brain (P3MB), studies the implications of test results that can inform an older adult of their risk for Alzheimer’s disease later in life. But, as she explains, more people are affected by an Alzheimer’s disease diagnosis than the patient alone. 

And, her research showed, both older adults and their loved ones had similar responses to news of the older adult’s risk. 

Dr. Jason Karlawish, co-director of the Penn Memory Center at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, USA, spoke to Alzheimer Europe about his new book, which takes us inside laboratories, the homes of people living with dementia, carers’ support groups, progressive care communities, and Dr. Karlawish’s own practice at the Penn Memory Center.

Dr. Lauren McCollum poses in the Perelman Center for Advanced Medicine during her time at Penn Memory Center. (Credit: Terrence Casey)

By Lindsey Keener 

It’s been more than a year since Lauren McCollum, MD, concluded her time as a trainee at Penn Memory Center, but mentorship and grant support have kept her in close collaboration with the site of her fellowship.  

While at Penn, Dr. McCollum was a medical student at the Perelman School of Medicine, a neurology resident, and ultimately a Cognitive and Behavioral Neurology Clinical Fellow at PMC. Today she is a clinician and researcher at the University of Tennessee’s Pat Summitt Clinic. She is also a clinical assistant professor at the university.  

At both centers, her ultimate priority was the same: to give quality care to each of her patients and their families.  

“There’s this amazing human component to this where you’re supporting families and supporting people going through something that is really, really hard,” she said. “A slow, chronic, often fatal progressive disease of the brain.”