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Penn Memory Center intern Mariya Bershad (right), reviews the app with research participant Isabel Gurbarg. (Photo by Joyce Lee)

By Joyce Lee

An array of cards appear on the screen, each with a vibrant, colorful image.

There’s a pair of red tomatoes. Yellow paper umbrellas. Brown cowboy boots.

But then, the cards flip over, obscuring their images.

Can you now match all the pairs?

This is the Memory Game app, a Penn Memory Center (PMC) initiative led by PMC Director of Neuropsychological Services Dawn Mechanic-Hamilton, PhD and PMC Co-Director David Wolk, MD. It’s part of an ambitious, innovative project looking at how apps can test and track cognitive skills in the progression of neurodegenerative disease.

By Janissa Delzo

When a patient chooses to learn they have amyloid in their brain difficult decisions and uncertainties lie ahead. What does that information mean? And how will they, their families, and co-workers, respond?

There’s no single answer. But often, the situations involve negative dialogue. For example, take “Angela.”  

Angela (an alias) is enrolled in the Penn Memory Center’s A4 study, a drug intervention for older adults who may be at risk of Alzheimer’s. In an attempt to help advance research, she experienced changing relationships with both her colleague and son, PMC Co-Director Jason Karlawish, MD, detailed in an Hastings Center Report editorial this month.

Clockwise from top-left: Sarah Bunjo, Nora Garland, Matt Volpe, and Laura Vargas

By Linnea Langkammer

This fall, Penn Memory Center welcomed a new group of social work interns to help develop and maintain psychosocial support programs for patients and caregivers at PMC.  

Sarah Bujno, Nora Garland, Laura Vargas, and Matt Volpe are students in the Master of Social Work program at the University of Pennsylvania’s School of Social Policy and Practice.

The interns will work with Executive Director Felicia Greenfield and Assistant Director of Care Programs Alison Lynn. Greenfield called the annual corps of social work students “integral to the PMC’s training mission.”

By Linnea Langkammer

Two Philadelphia universities are partnering to offer affordable, in-home respite care to area families caring for older adults.

The Penn Memory Center (PMC) and the Temple University Intergenerational Center jointly revitalized Time Out, a support and mentorship program first launched in 1986.

Time Out will facilitate meaningful, in-home engagement through intergenerational companionship by connecting elderly individuals with PMC-trained college students. This includes conversation, reading, or mobility assistance, and may also include meal preparation, laundry, and light grocery shopping. It does not include personal care — such as bathing, dressing, feeding, or toileting — nor administering medications or therapies.

While private respite care may cost more than $20 an hour, Time Out care providers will be available for $8.50 an hour and up to 10 hours per week.

Penn Memory Center, “a model” for other Alzheimer’s research centers, will receive ARTZ Philadelphia’s Caring Community Award at a community exhibition and reception Friday.

An ARTZ Philadelphia Community Exhibition

Friday, October 5  | 5:30 to 7:30 p.m.
The Philadelphia Foundation Community Arts Gallery
1835 Market Street, Suite 2410, Philadelphia PA
Register on the ARTZ Philadelphia website.

“We have seen an intensification of Penn Memory Center’s emphasis on the importance of the arts and humanities in the last several years,” said ARTZ Philadelphia founder and executive director, Susan Shifrin.

“I think that Penn Memory Center is a model for what other Alzheimer’s research centers and care centers should be doing.”

Over the last three years, Penn Memory Center, has launched and expanded projects such as Art of the Mind, Making Sense of Alzheimer’s, and collaborations with our community partner, Curtis Institute of Music. For the last two years, the Art of Mind exhibition showcased artists’ work in the intersection of memory and art. Making Sense of Alzheimer’s is a creative space for stories and ideas that tackle the changing understanding of what Alzheimer’s disease is. Arlen Hlusko, cellist from the Curtis Institute, has performed at our Thank You Breakfast, and Rimbo Wong, violinist from the Curtis Institute, has brought classical music into the homes of Penn Memory Center patients.

The Caring Community Award is offered to organizations that have worked with ARTZ Philadelphia and are notable for their promotion of quality of life that is enhanced specifically by interaction with the arts. Shifrin looks for organizations focused on being welcoming and open to people living with dementia.

At the same event, Deborah Davis, LCSW, will be awarded the Community Catalyst Award. Awards will be given out at a public reception at The Philadelphia Foundation Community Arts Gallery.

ARTZ Philadelphia, an organization dedicated to providing opportunities for self-expression and for the rebuilding of self-esteem and dignity to people with dementia and their caregivers, has had a relationship with Penn Memory Center since its inception.

This is the second Caring Community Award being presented by ARTZ. The first award was offered to Woodmere Art Museum, one of ARTZ Philadelphia’s longtime partners that hosts programs, lectures, and panel discussions as well as a collection of art.