Penn Memory Center

An Alzheimer's Disease Research Center

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Researchers look to apps to detect fine cognitive changes in Alzheimer’s disease

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.

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‘Amyloid in the Brain, Alzheimer’s on the Mind’

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.

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Sunday Reads: Welcome Back, ‘Time Out’

Editor’s Note: Here at the Penn Memory Center, the communications team has been trying out a weekly letter we call “Sunday Reads” to keep you updated on what’s been happening and what we’re currently reading in our office. To see this in your inbox first, fill out your name and email address at the top of your screen or email joyce.lee2@uphs.upenn.edu.

We have some exciting news: Time Out is back!

The mentorship and respite care program, which launched in 1986, went on a three-year hiatus, but we’re thrilled to help the Temple University Intergenerational Center bring it back in the spring.

We’re constantly talking about the challenges of caregiving and how we can overcome them. Time Out is just one example of that effort. PMC-trained college students will be matched with older adults in Philadelphia to provide affordable, in-home engagement such as conversation, reading, and laundry, among other interactions.

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Social work students join PMC team

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.”

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Sunday Reads: Natural Disasters And Dementia

Editor’s Note: Here at the Penn Memory Center, the communications team has been trying out a weekly letter we call “Sunday Reads” to keep you updated on what’s been happening and what we’re currently reading in our office. To see this in your inbox first, fill out your name and email address at the top of your screen or email joyce.lee2@uphs.upenn.edu.

It’s the peak of hurricane season, which reminds us here at PMC how our patients are particularly vulnerable to natural disasters.

Tropical storms have brought some rain to Philadelphia this season, but we’ve been fortunate not to experience anything like what has hit Florida this past week. However, we must be prepared for any harsh weather that may come in the months ahead, including major snowstorms and the extreme cold.

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Sunday Reads: Language, Stigma, And Disease

Editor’s Note: Here at the Penn Memory Center, the communications team has been trying out a weekly letter we call “Sunday Reads” to keep you updated on what’s been happening and what we’re currently reading in our office. To see this in your inbox first, fill out your name and email address at the top of your screen or email joyce.lee2@uphs.upenn.edu.

Language is an undeniably powerful tool. It can persuade, lift, and inspire.

But words can also sometimes be weaponized, to marginalize and discriminate against certain individuals and groups of people.

We’ve seen this happen with people living with dementia. That is why at PMC, we are very careful with the words we use to refer to our patients and research participants. But these conversations we’ve been having in our office have become more public, and we think it’s appropriate to talk about this now.

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PMC To Receive Caring Community Award from ARTZ Philadelphia

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.

October Memory Café to feature Philadelphia Zoo

October Memory Café

Friday, October 12 | 10:30 a.m. to Noon
Christ Church Neighborhood House
20 N. American Street, Philadelphia
RSVP to alison.lynn@uphs.upenn.edu

Philadelphia Zoo on Wheels joins Penn Memory Center for the October Memory Café.  Zoo on Wheels emphasizes the importance of empathy and connecting with animals. Animal petting, facts, and education will be a part of the Zoo on Wheels experience for attendees. To RSVP, contact Alison Lynn at 215-360-0257 or alison.lynn@uphs.upenn.edu.

Sunday Reads: Financial Fraud Among Older Adults

Editor’s Note: Here at the Penn Memory Center, the communications team has been trying out a weekly letter we call “Sunday Reads” to keep you updated on what’s been happening and what we’re currently reading in our office. To see this in your inbox first, fill out your name and email address at the top of your screen or email joyce.lee2@uphs.upenn.edu.

Older Americans lose billions of dollars each year due to fraud, and some of the most vulnerable people in that subset are individuals with Alzheimer’s disease and other forms of dementia.

In fact, before an individual is even diagnosed with Alzheimer’s, his or her bank accounts may shed light on a clinical diagnosis that’s yet to come.

“In some sense, the banking and financial services industries are on the front line of screening for cognitive decline in America,” PMC Co-Director Jason Karlawish, MD, told ABC7 in a recent article.

Dr. Karlawish goes on to detail the steps he’s taking to help protect individuals from elder fraud, as part of his self-developed strategy known as “Whealthcare.”

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Sunday Reads: Caregiving and Self-Care

Editor’s Note: Here at the Penn Memory Center, the communications team has been trying out a weekly letter we call “Sunday Reads” to keep you updated on what’s been happening and what we’re currently reading in our office. To see this in your inbox first, fill out your name and email address at the top of your screen or email joyce.lee2@uphs.upenn.edu.

Fall is officially here, which means cooler weather, warmer clothing, and perhaps a difference in cognition—at least according to a new study published in PLOS Medicine.

The changing of the seasons doesn’t mean that your cognition will be altered. Rather, the researchers found that individuals (with and without Alzheimer’s disease) performed better on working memory and speed of perception tests when they took them in the summer or fall compared to those who took the tests in the winter or spring.

This study adds to a growing body of research that has previously found cognition may change with the four seasons. If cognition does in fact shift, the authors of the paper suggest dementia-related clinical resources should be made more available in the cooler seasons when a person’s symptoms are more severe. Certain biomarkers could be responsible for the change, but it’s not quite clear. Therefore, more research is needed.

Regardless if cognition changes or not, two things that don’t are the value of a caregiver and the importance of them getting help, too.

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