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On May 7, the National Alzheimer’s and Dementia Resource Center hosted the webinar titled “The messages We Send: Stigma Toward Persons Living with Dementia and How to End It.” 

Rev. Cynthia Huling-Hummel, D. Min., and Penn Memory Center Scholar Shana Stites, PsyD, MA, MS, led the seminar about the types of stigma that can affect persons with dementia.

During the seminar, Dr. Stites describes the powerful role of language in creating stigma of dementia and how people can counteract this stigma through use of strengths-based and person-centered language when talking with and about persons with dementia. Dr. Huling-Hummel, who was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease in 2011, shares her own experience related to these issues as well.

From watching this seminar, viewers can expect to acquire person-centered language strategies to help end stigma surrounding dementia.

By Leah Fein

The World Health Organization (WHO) recently released a set of guidelines to reduce the risk of dementia globally, essentially advising to take care of your heart to take care of your brain. 

Dementia is a loss of cognitive functioning — thinking, memory, reasoning, and behavioral abilities — to the extent that it interferes with a person’s daily life and activities. Dementia has many causes and no cure, which is why the WHO emphasized the need for adopting healthy behaviors.

“The scientific evidence gathered for these guidelines confirm what we have suspected for some time, that what is good for our heart, is also good for our brain,” WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said in a statement.

By Leah Fein

Your spouse can identify serious memory problems more accurately than you can.

That’s the takeaway from the Philadelphia Inquirer’s recent interview with Dawn Mechanic-Hamilton, Penn Memory Center (PMC) Director of Cognitive Fitness Programs and Neuropsychological Services, about her research, which found no relationship between progressive cognitive decline and people’s perceived memory concerns.

However, Dr. Mechanic-Hamilton, along with PMC Co-Director Dr. David Wolk and medical student Leah Zuroff, did find that proxies, like a spouse, were much better at correctly identifying cognitive changes that progressed to mild cognitive impairment or dementia.

By Leah Fein and the Netter Center for Community Partnerships

The founding partners of the intergenerational Dance for Health program were honored last week with the 2019 Provost-Netter Center Faculty-Community Partnership Award. This award recognizes and supports outstanding, sustained, and productive university/community partnerships.

Terri H. Lipman, PhD, CRNP, FAAN, is the Assistant Dean for Community Engagement, the Miriam Stirl Endowed Term Professor of Nutrition, and Professor of Nursing of Children at the School of Nursing, and maintains a clinical practice as a pediatric nurse practitioner in the Division of Diabetes and Endocrinology at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP).

Dr. Lipman and Inthedance, LLC co-founders David and Serena Williams Early began Dance for Health program in 2012 with a goal of increasing access to physical activity and encouraging balance and body movement through dance. Since its inception, Dance for Health has engaged 700 participants and has demonstrated a positive impact on cardiovascular health, anxiety, memory, and social support.

Monday, May 20th, 2019
Noon to 1 p.m.
Ralston Wellness Center
3615 Chestnut Street, Philadelphia, PA

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Join Penn Memory Center Co-Director Jason Karlawish, MD, for a free discussion on how your lifestyle affects your brain as you age. Learn what activities are effective in protecting your brain health and how and when to do them.

Healthy aging requires adults to challenge your brain and stay both physically active and socially engaged, according to the Global Council on Brain Health, of which Dr. Karlawish is a member. Learn more about these strategies at “Healthy Brain Aging.”

The program and lunch are free, though registration is required. Call 215-386-2984 or email contact@ralstoncenter.org to RSVP.

By Janissa Delzo

If you learned you had an increased risk of developing Alzheimer’s disease, would you ever consider physician-assisted death (PAD)?

This is the question asked of participants in a Penn Memory Center study published this week in JAMA Neurology. About 20 percent of individuals who had learned they had elevated beta-amyloid, an Alzheimer’s-linked protein, reported that they would consider PAD “if they became cognitively impaired, were suffering, or were burdening others.”

The team lead by author and PMC scholar Emily Largent first interviewed 50 individuals from the Anti-Amyloid Treatment in Asymptomatic Alzheimer’s study 4 to 12 weeks after they were informed of elevated beta-amyloid in their brain; some had broached the subject of PAD without prompting by researchers. At a 12-month follow-up, 47 participants were asked about PAD.

Under current U.S. laws, persons with dementia are not eligible for PAD. However, in seven states and Washington D.C., those who are competent and terminally ill are eligible.

“There are ongoing ethics and policy debates around whether to extend physician-assisted death to patients with neurodegenerative diseases, including Alzheimer’s,” said Largent. “This was a unique opportunity to gauge interest in PAD in people who recently learned they were at increased risk for dementia.”

One participant called for more research into the topic.

“You should not have to suffer, and if you do not remember anything and you are just a burden, then that is not any kind of life,” the participant told researchers.

Nearly two-thirds of respondents said they would not consider physician-assisted death, citing personal, religious, or philosophical objections.

Largent’s team interviewed 30 individuals who did not have elevated beta-amyloid. When asked to consider a hypothetical situation in which they did, their responses regarding PAD or suicide were similar to those with elevated amyloid.

PMC Co-Director Jason Karlawish, MD, and Research Program Manager Kristin Harkins, MPH, are also co-authors on the paper. To read the full research letter, titled “Attitudes Toward Physician-Assisted Death From Individuals Who Learn They Have an Alzheimer’s Disease Biomarker,” click here.