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Penn Memory Center Neurologist Roy Hamilton, MD, MS

By Melissa Moody, Penn Medicine

Close your eyes and imagine a person with Alzheimer’s disease. Now open them. Is the person you imagined Black?

If not, maybe they should be, according to Penn Memory Center Neurologist Roy Hamilton, MD, MS, an associate professor of Neurology and Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation at the Perelman School of Medicine. “Looking at the relative prevalence of the disease in different populations, the prototypical person you imagine when you close your eyes ought to be Black or Latinx, because the risk of Alzheimer’s disease and related neurodegenerative conditions is so much higher in communities of color.”

By Danny Yarnall

Researchers from the Penn Memory Center and around the world convened July 27-31 at the Alzheimer’s Association International Conference (AAIC). Instead of meeting in a major metro, like previous host cities Chicago or Los Angeles, AAIC was held in a virtual, free, and public format.

All who registered have for the remainder of the month access to an on-demand library of presentations on topics ranging from dementia care biomarkers and machine learning. 

PMC was well-represented at the conference with 13 researchers presenting more than 30 abstracts, while also highlighting PMC research through lectures, posters, and discussion sessions.

Dementia care can be a struggle for both the care recipient and caregiver. Caregivers could feel overwhelmed and recipients feel cornered now more than ever with public health restrictions limiting access to activities, groups, help outside the home.

Arden Courts Memory Care Community and care expert Teepa Snow, MS, ORT/L, FAOTA will host a webinar at 3:00 p.m. EDT Wednesday, August 18, 2020, for caregivers who want new strategies managing their loved ones’ daily care.

Teepa Snow is an occupational therapist with four decades of experience and the founder of Positive Approach® to Care (PAC), a company that provides dementia training and care services to clients worldwide. Teepa will host a seminar on how to respond to the most common symptoms and behaviors of people living with dementia and how to accept the changes that come with dementia care without losing control or feeling overwhelmed.

You can register for the webinar here.

By Danny Yarnall

Shana Stites, PsyD, MA, MS, recently was a part of the 2020 Butler Williams Scholar’s Conference gathering of rising aging and dementia scholars in early July. 

Dr. Shana Sites is a PMC Clark Scholar, a clinical psychologist, and a researcher with the Penn Program on Precision Medicine for the Brain (P3MB). Applications for the program opened in October 2019 and closed in February 2020. The pool of potential attending scholars had to hold a doctorate and either engage in aging research or actively consider working the field. The NIA announced the accepted scholars in April of this year.

By Kamila Ahmad

Penn Memory Center neurologist Sanjeev Vaishnavi, MD, PhD, was recently named a member of the Alzheimer’s Clinical Trials Consortium (ACTC) Early Career Project Evaluation Committee (PEC). 

ACTC is a clinical trials infrastructure launched in December 2017 and designed to accelerate and expand studies for therapies in Alzheimer’s disease and related dementias. Through the PEC, ACTC will improve diversity amongst early-career investigators and professionals while providing mentorship for research fellows. 

At PMC, Dr. Vaishnavi conducts clinical research to discover better ways to diagnose and treat neurodegenerative diseases, with an emphasis on early diagnosis and prevention. He specializes in the diagnosis and treatment of older adults with cognitive impairment and dementia, including Alzheimer’s and other neurodegenerative conditions, and training medical students, neurology residents, and fellows to be the next generation of leaders. 

By Kamila Ahmad

Historically, a patient would not be diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease until after the onset of cognitive decline. Biomarkers such as amyloid and neurodegeneration are changing that. 

Researchers are able to use these and other biomarkers to identify individuals with “preclinical” Alzheimer’s disease, even if the individual does not yet report symptoms like memory loss. This can help develop clinical trials that hope to intervene early and potentially prevent dementia, but it also requires additional ethical considerations, Clark Scholar Emily Largent, PhD, JD, RN said on a recent episode of the Finding Genius Podcast. 

Dr. Darina Petrovsky leads the Penn Memory Center choir at the Research Partner Thank You Breakfast.

By Kamila Ahmad

When taking steps toward better brain health, consider the two-step. 

Music and dance can stimulate brain activity, manage stress, and help those living with dementia, stroke, and Parkinson’s disease, according to a new report from the Global Council on Brain Health. 

 “Music is a universal language that everyone can enjoy with remarkable benefits,” said Sarah Lenz Lock, Executive Director of the GCBH. “This report suggests music can have a powerful role to play in healthy aging by enriching our brains’ activity, improving our moods, and fostering social connections.”  

By Danny Yarnall

ARTZ Philadelphia will honor a beloved member of the PMC family, the late Carl Duzen, with a new program this month.

ARTZ Notes will be a regular music program offered through ARTZ aimed at recreating the small intimate concerts Carl and his wife, Susan Jewett, would hold in their home. 

“His legacy…is everywhere in the ARTZ Philadelphia community and we are honored to launch this program in his memory,” ARTZ Philly said in an announcement for the event.

ARTZ Notes will launch 11 a.m. to noon on Tuesday, July 21 and feature Rabbi Beth Janus. Rabbi Janus will lead the group as they engage with songs, storytelling, and Jewish culture. 

While registration for ARTZ Notes with Rabbi Beth Janus has closed, you can still sign up for the August 15 event, featuring singer-songwriter and educator Keisha Hutchins-Hirlinger. This event will run from 1:30 p.m. to 2:30 p.m.

Cara Kiernan Fallon has completed her two-year postdoctoral fellowship in Medical Ethics and Health Policy at Penn, where she was also a Clark Scholar at Penn Memory Center and an associate fellow with the Center for Public Health Initiatives.

While at Penn, her work focused on the historical, ethical, and cultural aspects of aging and chronic disease. She published on definitions of health over the life course with Dr. Jason Karlawish, gender stereotypes in chronic disease, and has forthcoming articles on disability in old age. Supplementing her academic articles, she has lectured at Didactics and Geriatrics Grand Rounds, and she appeared as a guest on ESPN’s Inside Medicine radio show to discuss her work. Her writing has appeared in the Wall Street Journal and Stat 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.