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Penn Memory Center (PMC) Executive Director Felicia Greenfield appeared on NBC10 recently for an interview with PMC patient and former Temple University professor Jeff Draine.

The two discussed his early-onset Alzheimer’s disease and the importance of positivity after receiving a diagnosis.

“Improving a person’s quality of life is the best thing we can do right now, not only for the person with the diagnosis but also for their family members,” Greenfield said.

All adults, regardless of cognitive status, should be a brain-healthy diet (“the more colors on your plate, the better,” Greenfield said) and should seek an evaluation if memory problems go beyond ordinary.

Click here to watch the complete interview.

By Jason Karlawish

Bill Lyon, the romantic, finally found his sunset.

It was the fall of 2017 when I went out to visit Bill at his home, not as “the man in the white coat,” as I’d been dubbed in his columns, but as an interviewer looking to understand what made him so fearless.

Fearless, not just to accept the Alzheimer’s diagnosis I had given him four years earlier, but to shout it out from the tallest tower he could scale.

Fearless, not just to live with the loss of his cognitive abilities, but to put them on display to a world that had so treasured his mind for decades.

Fearless, to celebrate the circle of life and acknowledge his place in it.

“You pass along the baton, and you hope you’re leaving behind you somebody who can pick up and follow,” he told me that day.

By Danny Yarnall

A contest from the National Institute on Aging (NIA) has pushed app creators to focus on ways technology can improve the care and management of Alzheimer’s patients.

The Eureka Prize from the NIA awarded three teams on their efforts to create new apps and software designed to improve dementia care and care coordination. The contest, launched in 2018 to drive innovation in the dementia care space, fielded 33 applicants with submissions ranging from mobile apps to software platforms to pick the three winners to share $400,000 in prize money.

By Sharnita Midgett

Ken Ford, 93, travels an hour from his home to the Perelman Center for Advanced Medicine. He meets annually with his ABC coordinators and clinicians, saying “yes” to MRIs, PET scans and lumbar punctures. He has done this for 13 years, showing up for his appointments and and rescheduling when conflicts arise. Why? Ford is motivated, not by a family history of dementia, but a pure love for science. 

“Anything I can do that will contribute to research, I’m happy to do, as long as it’s not too intrusive or too time consuming for me,” Ford said. “I just do my duty. Anything for science.”

Credit: reneechenaultfattah.com

A new documentary from Renee Chenault-Fattah exploring the struggles of families affected by Alzheimer’s disease will have its television premiere 7 p.m. Nov. 30 on NBC10.

Chenault-Fattah, a former anchor for NBC10, told Philadelphia Magazine she began to see her friends either become caregivers or start to experience cognitive issues themselves shortly after turning 60. Then she came across an article detailing the disproportionate toll the disease takes on the African American and Hispanic communities. African-Americans are twice as likely as white people to develop Alzheimer’s disease or other dementias, while Hispanics are 1.5 times as likely.

“That spoke to me and said this is the story you need to do,” she said in the interview.

By Danny Yarnall

Medicare’s open-enrollment period for 2020 is already a month underway and many older Americans are weighing plans ahead of the December 7 deadline. But outside of normal year-to-year increases in out-of-pocket costs and premiums is a staggering difference for Medicare beneficiaries with dementia.

Last April, Health Services Research published a study that used 20 years of Medicare expenditures to estimate that Medicare spends nearly $16,000 more on patients with dementia than other Medicare beneficiaries.  

By Danny Yarnall

University of Pennsylvania neuropathologist Edward Lee, PhD received a grant from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the National Institute on Aging (NIA) to support a new career development workshop in neuropathology.

The grant allows up to 20 American Association of Neuropathologists (AANP) scholars to attend the three-year workshop. It will focus on promoting “Neurodegenerative Disease Neuropathology Research,” and Dr. Lee will co-direct the workshop.