An Alzheimer's Disease Research Center
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.
It has been almost two years since the COVID-19 pandemic impacted us all, and almost six months since we last shared with you the importance of vaccination. We have seen many changes to procedures and daily life — adapting as we learn new information. Like us, viruses also learn ways to adapt. There is an emergence of a new COVID-19 variant called Delta. Viruses change and adapt overtime, acting in new ways. The longer a virus circulates, the more it can change. This is called a variant. As the Delta variant has emerged, we would like to encourage you to get your COVID-19 vaccinations.
Below are some facts about the Delta variant from the Centers for Disease Control:
Medical student at PCOM, member of Alpha Phi Alpha, and Penn Memory Center community partner Frederick Okoye shared his thought on the COVID-19 vaccination. “It’s just peace of mind. It’s just looking out for your fellow man or woman in your communities. Looking out for our elderly, looking out for our immunocompromised. It’s doing your civil duty.” Okoye said. “If you’re lucky enough to get the vaccine, I strongly encourage anybody to do so.”
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.
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.”
The Penn Memory Center offers valuable hands-on experience and mentorship through training programs in the areas of social work, research, neuropsychology, communications, and clinical care and is dedicated to creating training opportunities for people from underrepresented racial and ethnic groups. These efforts play a vital role in advancing Alzheimer’s disease and related dementias (ADRDs) care and research and closing health disparity gaps. Funding of our training programs relies on generous donations.