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PMC’s Dr. Laura Wisse is flanked by Alzheimer’s Association Delaware Valley Chapter Executive Director Kristina Fransel and Dr. Rebecca Edelmayer, Alzheimer’s Association Director of Scientific Engagement after receiving a research grant award.

By Danny Yarnall

Former Penn Memory Center Scholar Laura Wisse, PhD, recently left the University of Pennsylvania to pursue an assistant professorship at Lund University in Sweden.

Dr. Wisse first came to the Penn Memory Center in 2014 for a post-doctoral fellowship after earning a PhD in Neuroscience and MSc in Epidemiology from Utrecht University in the Netherlands in 2014 and an MSc in Psychology from Leiden University in the Netherlands in 2010.

She brought to Philadelphia a keen interest in aging brains and the mind, sparked from her time working in a nursing home while in high school. Part of her duties was to help out with a daycare program for the people at the home with cognitive decline and dementia. Her hours were spent feeding, playing games and music with residents, and sometimes even painting their nails.

Penn Memory Center Scholar Shana Stites, PsyD, MA, MS was a featured guest on a recent episode of Dementia Matters, hosted by Dr. Nathaniel Chin of the University of Wisconsin. On the show, Dr. Stites discussed her work with the stigma surrounding Alzheimer’s disease and the role disclosure can have on perpetuating or fighting it.

Stigma can come from both internal and external sources, she explained, based on our perceptions of how a person with Alzheimer’s disease is supposed to act, what they’re supposed to look like, and how those perceptions meet with reality.

In Dr. Stites’ work on the subject, she found that people who believed more strongly that Alzheimer’s disease is a mental illness tended to “over-interpret” symptoms presented to them in a fictional vignette, believing the symptoms to be worse than those who did not associate Alzheimer’s disease with mental illness as strongly.

“If we have a strong belief Alzheimer’s disease is a mental illness…it could impact our willingness or openness to learn a gene or biomarker result,” Dr. Stites said.

You can listen to the full episode here.

This free program is for PMC patients experiencing memory change, or for those with mild cognitive impairment or early-stage dementia. Throughout a series of classes, participants will engage in collaborative and creative musical experiences, with a particular focus on creating new music. Participants will also be treated to musical performances by Curtis Institute students, including a concert at the end of the program! Beginners welcome.

Session 1 Schedule:

2 p.m. to 4 p.m. Tuesday, October 8, 2019
2 p.m. to 4 p.m. Tuesday, October 15, 2019
2 p.m. to 4 p.m. Tuesday, October 22, 2019
2 p.m. to 4 p.m. Tuesday, October 29, 2019
2 p.m. to 4 p.m. Tuesday, November 5, 2019
2 p.m. to 4 p.m. Tuesday, November 12, 2019
2 p.m. to 4 p.m. Tuesday, November 19, 2019

Session 2 Schedule:

2 p.m. to 4 p.m. Tuesday, January 21, 2020
2 p.m. to 4 p.m. Tuesday, January 28, 2020
2 p.m. to 4 p.m. Tuesday, February 4, 2020
2 p.m. to 4 p.m. Tuesday, February 11, 2020
2 p.m. to 4 p.m. Tuesday, February 18, 2020
2 p.m. to 4 p.m. Tuesday, February 25, 2020
2 p.m. to 4 p.m. Tuesday, March 3, 2020
2 p.m. to 4 p.m. Tuesday, March 10, 2020

Where:
The Curtis Institute of Music
1616 Locust Street, Philadelphia, PA
Lenfest Hall, Room LH314

RSVP by contacting:
Alexandra Acaba Barrocal at alexandra.acaba@pennmedicine.upenn.edu

By Danny Yarnall

It’s said the best careers are found when following one’s passion. Rarely does someone get to follow two passions at once.

As a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Pennsylvania, Darina Petrovsky PhD, RN, has taken her love and a lifelong passion for music and combined it with a background in nursing science to conduct studies specifically looking at music’s effects on cognition in older adults, including a study published this year in Psychology of Music on musical ability in adults with mild cognitive impairment (MCI).

She became involved in music growing up in Russia under the guidance of her grandmother, who was never formally trained and survived World War II in St. Petersburg, then Leningrad, as a child.

“She was always working around musicians and had a good sense of what good music is,” Dr. Petrovsky said. “She never had a lot of resources. During World War II there was a seige. You couldn’t get food in and out, but they still had concerts so they could still enjoy music.”

At age 7, Dr. Petrovsky auditioned for an after-school music program for formal training. She attended the program until she was 14, learning music theory, choir performance, and a variety of instruments. She brought this love with her when she moved to the U.S. at 14 and began exploring other outlets for her talent. She picked up a side gig in high school playing solo piano or accompanying by other singers at nursing homes, which brought to her attention the benefits of music in this audience.”

“It was a great way for me to engage with this population. They really enjoyed our performances…after that, I always wanted to work with older adults,” she said.

Dr. Petrovsky played piano all through high school and as the focus of her Bachelor’s in Musical Arts at University of Michigan. She switched tracks in graduate school, earning her Master’s in Nursing at Case Western Reserve University before achieving her PhD in nursing at UPenn in 2017. 

Most of Dr. Petrovsky’s work has focused on the intersection of music and brain health and their ability to impact one another. In one study, she interviewed adult choir performers at Mercy LIFE in West Philadelphia, a program of all-inclusive care for the elderly, to find out what benefits they believe singing has on them at this stage in their lives.

Darina Petrovsky, MN, PhD, leads the Penn Memory Center choir at the Research Partner Thank You Breakfast.

Her recent study with the Penn Memory Center examined where adults with MCI rank their “musical engagement” — how often they listen, play, or go out to see music — and what other musical abilities and interests they had. Dr. Petrosky also wanted to see if there was a  correlation between this musical ability and scores on cognitive tests. What she found was somewhat surprising and not in line with the researchers’ hypothesis gong into the study.

While other studies presented some of the benefits music education had on cognitive abilities in older adults, Dr. Petrovsky’s team found that there was not much correlation between her group’s test scores and their musical engagement.

“This means two things,” she said, “a) the scale that we used may not be very good or b) musical ability and the ability to think about your engagement engages a different part of the brain.”

Currently, she is conducting a study on how listening to music at bedtime affects sleep in older adults with dementia. 

Dr. Petrovsky has also led the Penn Memory Center Choir for Older Adults and has been a performer at Penn Memory Center’s Memory Cafe at Christ Church Neighborhood House in Old City, drawing on her musical education and love of piano to continue meshing her two passions.

Fans of Penn Memory Center’s popular Memory Café now have an additional option in University City.

Daylight Café will debut 10 a.m. to 11:30 a.m. Wednesday, September 25 at the Drexel University Community Wellness HUB. The café is free and open to any individual with cognitive impairment and their care partner. Light refreshments will be provided.

The Daylight Cafe will be regularly scheduled on the fourth Wednesday of every month. For more details, email daylightcafe@drexel.edu or call 215-359-5627.

PMC hosts its own free Memory Café in Christ Church Neighborhood House in Old City. The next café is 10:30 a.m. to noon on September 27 and will include performances by the Curtis Institute of Music. Please RSVP to Alison Lynn at 215-360-0257 or alison.lynn@uphs.upenn.edu. All 2019 dates are posted here.

By Sharnita Midgett

How does a clinician decide when to listen to the decisions of their patients or override those decisions for their patients’ safety? This is a question of decision-making capacity, which is impacted by several factors and is sometimes hard to determine. 

Lecturer in the Department of Psychiatry at Yale University and lead writer Rocksheng Zhong, MD, MHS, Assistant Professor in the Department of Medical Ethics and Health Policy Dominic Sisti, PhD, and PMC Co-Director Jason Karlawish, MD, co-authored an article discussing the pragmatic approach to assessing decision-making capacity. 

The National Institute on Aging (NIA) has awarded a five-year grant expected to total $53.4 million to Brown University and Boston-based Hebrew SeniorLife (HSL) to lead a nationwide effort to improve healthcare and quality of life for people living with Alzheimer’s disease and related dementias, as well as their caregivers. 

Together, the institutions will create a massive collaborative research incubator to develop trials aimed at evaluating interventions for Alzheimer’s disease or Alzheimer’s-related dementia (AD/ADRD). 

The Alzheimer’s Association estimates that while more than 5 million Americans currently live with Alzheimer’s or a related dementia, the number is expected to double by 2050. The current annual cost of dementia care exceeds $226 million a year in the U.S. alone. 

“It’s time for Alzheimer’s and other dementias to receive the same level of research focus and investment as cancer,” said Louis Woolf, HSL president and CEO. “We’re proud to collaborate with Brown University to address this national epidemic that affects not only patients, but their families and caregivers as well.” 

A Night Out For Alzheimer’s Disease

September 26th | 6-8 PM
Prime Rib | 1701 Locust St.

Tickets and Information

At the Penn Memory Center, we’re leading the fields of Alzheimer’s disease care, research, education, and discovery…

…and we need your help.

Join us September 26th as we celebrate our resilient patients and caregivers and support the research, clinical care, caregiver support, and training initiatives that define the Penn Memory Center. Enjoy a fun evening that will include drinks, appetizers, and creative ways to support our work. Raffle and auction prizes include Philadelphia Eagles tickets, whiskey tastings, restaurant gift cards, and even a beach vacation!

Without philanthropic support, PMC could not sustain the infrastructure we need to provide high-quality clinical care, and our ability to secure research funding would be hindered. The dollars we receive from philanthropy and research allow us to provide the premier care not found in other outpatient practices.

Made Possible Through Philanthropy:

• Longer visits
• Psychometric testing and testers
• Training of the next generation of memory care specialists, neuropsychologists, and geriatric social workers
• Counselors and caregiver support
• Memory Cafés and other special programs
• PET Scans, including amyloid and tau
• 3T and 7T MRI scans
• The annual Research Partner Thank You Luncheon
• InSight Magazine

If you are unable to attend this event but still want to support our efforts, please visit www.pennmemorycenter.org/gifts.