Latest News

By Danny Yarnall

Penn Program on Precision Medicine for the Brain (P3MB) researchers and their collaborators are calling for a revision of studies to better consider persons living with dementia in order to provide vital data for future care interventions.

Embedded Pragmatic Clinical Trials (ePCTs) try to make research look as much like actual care as possible. They are scored on their “pragmatism” or how closely they resemble standard care. If a study is designed well and its methods closely hew to what clinical care looks like in a particular care setting, it can provide highly actionable information that healthcare professionals and policymakers can use to improve care for people in that care setting.

Currently, relatively few ePCTs are being used in Alzheimer’s research. Meanwhile, a fragmented healthcare system, compounded by a lack of specialists to treat the growing number of persons with dementia, often falls short of providing high-quality care to the some five million people living with Alzheimer’s disease and related dementias in the United States and supporting their care partners. While potentially valuable, ePCTs in persons living with dementia present some ethical hurdles that need to be considered and addressed.

By Sharnita Midgett

Many things have changed in the past several months. Each of us has adapted and answered the call to work towards a healthier future in our own way — practicing social distancing, serving as an essential worker, sewing masks, comforting others, or lending our skills whatever they are.

Together, through our good work, we will get through this unprecedented time.

For the ABC team, adapting meant pausing in-person visits and instead conducting visits remotely, over the phone or online via a video meeting. Many of you had to learn a new system and adapt to changes, but you remained active, flexible, and as willing as ever to contribute.

Thank you!

By Sharnita Midgett

A sudden change in thinking or behavior, known as delirium, affects as many as half of all Americans ages 65 and older once they are admitted to a hospital. Despite this, delirium is still underrecognized by medical professionals. As the Global Council on Brain Health wrote, “you likely have never even heard of it.” 

The Global Council on Brain Health (GCBH) discussed what delirium is and released several recommendations to prevent and treat delirium in a recent report. PMC Co-Director Jason Karlawish, MD, is a member of the GCBH Governance Committee. 

“Delirium is sort of a product of many different factors coming together: an aging brain, one that’s acutely ill; going to a hospital, a changing environment; a host of other changes, a host of other noxious stimuli to the brain from some of the medications that are given,” Dr. Karlawish told Being Patient in a discussion on delirium.

By Carlos Thomas

At the Penn Memory Center, July means a changing of the guard within the Clinical Fellowship program.

This summer, we welcome Dr. Kyra O’Brien as a new clinical fellow, advance Dr. Sara Manning into her second year of the fellowship program, and offer our best wishes to Cognitive and Behavioral Neurology Clinical Fellow Dr. Lauren McCollum.

By Hannah Messinger, Penn Medicine

The brain is one of the most complex systems in the body, controlling movement, memory, communication, emotion, thought, and more. Unfortunately, serious diseases and injuries such as stroke, dementia, and psychiatric disorders can impede and disable core functions in the brain. Now, thanks to recent advances in neuroscience, neuroengineering, and other converging fields, experts are exploring the use of neuromodulation—noninvasive brain stimulation—to restore these functions in the brain, and Penn Medicine has launched a new center to study this science.

The Penn Brain Science, Translation, Innovation, and Modulation (brainSTIM) Center brings together a team of leading neuroscientists, neurologists, psychiatrists, psychologists, and engineers at Penn using neuromodulation techniques to research, repair, and enhance human brain function—the first translational center of its kind in the region.

The brainSTIM Center is led by Roy Hamilton, MD, MS, a neurologist at the Penn Memory Center and an associate professor of Neurology and Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation at the Perelman School of Medicine in the University of Pennsylvania. The center will be a hub for developing new treatments that use neuromodulation—direct stimulation of the brain with electrical signals or magnets—to reorder, reorganize, and restore brain function in patients suffering from various types of neurologic disorders such as dementia and stroke and psychiatric disorders like anxiety.

Top row: Cara Kiernan Fallon, PhD, Karolina Lempert, PhD; Lasya Sreepada; MPH;
Bottom row: Emily Largent, PhD, JD, RN; Shana Stites, PsyD, MA, MS; and Dawn Mechanic-Hamilton, PhD, ABPP/CN

By Danny Yarnall

The Penn Memory Center Scholars Program — the cornerstone of PMC’s efforts to train the next generation of Alzheimer’s disease researchers — is now named after the man responsible for first launching the Center.  

The new title, The Christopher M. Clark Scholars Program at the Penn Memory Center (PMC), honors the late Dr. Clark, PMC founding director, for his contributions to Alzheimer’s research. This commitment also underscores the belief that perspectives from psychology and economics belong at the table just as much as neurology and geriatrics when it comes to our work. 

“Chris Clark was committed to a vision: excellence in Alzheimer’s disease diagnosis, care, and research required a diversity of disciplines and sciences working and learning together. The Christopher M. Clark Scholars Program was founded to fulfill that vision,” said PMC Co-Director Jason Karlawish, MD. “We seek to nurture and support the best minds and to instill in them the virtues Chris lived. He understood the value of listening, tolerance, and a consistent and unwavering commitment to professional ethics.”

Graphic visual representations of information and data from the Alzheimer’s Disease Facts and Figures report.

The number of persons living with dementia is expected to more than double by 2050, and more than half of primary care physicians feel the medical profession is unprepared to handle the increase in cases.

This and other challenges are detailed in the Alzheimer’s Association’s annual report Alzheimer’s Disease Facts and Figures. The report examines the state of Alzheimer’s Disease in America and includes a new special report, “On the Front Lines: Primary Care Physicians and Alzheimer’s Care in America,” that addresses the dearth in specialists, training, and confidence primary care physicians have in diagnosing and treating Alzheimer’s.

By Danny Yarnall

Pamela Bryan could tell her husband David was struggling. Social-distancing restrictions shrunk their world to their East Oak Lane home and David, who lives with Mild Cognitive Impairment, started faltering in his memory more than usual.

“I noticed a decline,” she said. “There were changes in his forgetfulness, like where he was, and I’d have to remind him that this was our house.”

Isolation has left many caregivers feeling overwhelmed by constant care and presence with their loved ones, with fewer options to find relief and time to themselves. Some people living with dementia are more vulnerable to confusion and decline as routines they grounded themselves in are disrupted. One pilot program from Penn Memory Center and Temple University is adapting to meet caregivers’ needs both now and in the future.

Once a resource for caregivers and their loved ones to receive in-home respite care and engagement, Time Out Respite Care is pivoting to an online pilot program called Time Out Weekly Smile.

By Danny Yarnall

In 2019, after a quarter-century of scholarship in theater arts, Anne Basting, PhD was a veteran in the theatre world and experienced on many stages, but none like the stage at Morgantown Care and Rehabilitation in Morgantown, Kentucky.

It was the opening for the first of three adaptations of Peter Pan, performed at 12 rural nursing homes scattered across the state. Their take on the classic children’s story was born out of hundreds of sessions facilitated by Dr. Basting and trained volunteers from her TimeSlips organization and performed by residents, volunteers, and staff.

“These residents, several of whom had not been out of their rooms for months, were about to welcome an audience to see them and their nursing home in a completely new light. They were inviting their audience to see beauty and meaning in a place where most people only see overwhelming loss,” Dr. Basting recalled in a virtual discussion with the Penn Memory Center on Wednesday, May 27.