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Latest News
Memory Café welcomes Beacon Theatre Productions
Join the Penn Memory Center on Friday, February 2, for Memory Café featuring Beacon Theatre Productions, who will be presenting the short play “Mary Todd Lincoln: The Woman You Thought You Knew.”
Friday, February 2 | 10:30 a.m. to noon
Christ Church Neighborhood House
20 N. American Street
Philadelphia, PA 19106
Beacon Theatre Productions is a theatre company that aims to produce high-quality, thought-provoking productions that encourage reflection and discussion, with a focus on historical events and well-known literary works. The company also hosts talk-backs and speakers’ nights with authors, actors, playwrights and directors, publishes study guides to encourage discussion of significant issues, and offers productions to marginalized or underserved populations through pay-as-you-can performances at accessible venues.
Karlawish: President Trump’s cognitive exam provides insufficient data
By Joyce Lee
President Trump recently completed a cognitive assessment with a perfect score, but a report in The New York Times explains that the 10-minute screening exam he took, called the Montreal Cognitive Assessment (MoCA) is not a definitive or even a diagnostic tool for cognitive decline.
The MoCA, widely used at Alzheimer’s disease research centers across the country, is a screening test designed to identify problems that occur in the earliest stage of memory problems, often known as mild cognitive impairment (MCI). MoCA tests cognitive skills like memory, attention and concentration, and control and self-regulation. However, medical societies do not recommend cognitive screenings like MoCA because they are “not like mammograms for breast cancer and colonoscopies for colon cancer.” These screenings cannot help physicians provide a specific diagnosis or even begin treatment, in part because most forms of cognitive decline, like Alzheimer’s disease, have very few to no effective treatment options.
“Nonetheless, Medicare recipients are often given cognitive screenings,” PMC Co-Director Dr. Jason Karlawish noted. “That is because Congress instituted a requirement that Medicare cover a brief cognitive screening test as part of the annual wellness exam.”
Vision of Whealthcare: Using financial data to identify fraud or cognitive impairment
By Joyce Lee
Banking and medicine are two industries that have “little in common,” but their collaboration could advance the fight against Alzheimer’s disease and related dementias, Penn Memory Center Co-Director Jason Karlawish wrote in a recent column.
The column, published in STAT News, highlighted the importance of the partnership between those who manage health and those who manage wealth in an initiative called “whealthcare.”
Advances in public health has made it possible for the average 65-year-old American to live for 19 more years. But with longer lifespans comes financial, as well as cognitive, challenges. Not only do older adults have to worry about ensuring the security of their financial future post-retirement, they also have to deal with age-related declines in memory and thinking skills.
And with the possibility of cognitive impairments caused by Alzheimer’s disease and related dementias, older adults might have to face the risk of needing long-term care and of being vulnerable to financial fraud, exploitation, and mismanagement.
A collaboration between the banking and the medical industries could change these prospects for older Americans.
“Our day-to-day use of our money provides signals of brain function that can be far more real-world and meaningful than the results of online cognitive tests and brain scans,” Dr. Karlawish wrote. “This is where the banking and financial services industries can help achieve our national “moonshot” goal of preventing Alzheimer’s disease by 2025.”
New coordinator uses education background to support West Philadelphia’s aging population
Penn Memory Center Coordinator of Diversity in Research and Education Karletta Poland (left), PMC Co-Director Jason Karlawish (center left), and PMC ambassador Karen Wheeler (center right) pose with Alpha Phi Alpha brothers after “Alzheimer’s in our Community.”
by Joyce Lee
Karletta Poland, an experienced educator and program manager who has worked closely with the Philadelphia community, has joined Penn Memory Center as Coordinator of Diversity in Research and Education.
Poland will renew the center’s efforts in outreach and education with a focus on the aging African-American population in West Philadelphia. She will promote the recruitment and retention of older adults in research studies at PMC and connect them to the various resources and psychosocial services offered at the center.
Karlawish honored for ‘significant contributions’ in geriatrics
Penn Memory Center Co-Director Dr. Jason Karlawish was recently awarded the Barbara Bell, M.D., award by the Eastern Pennsylvania Geriatrics Society (EPGS) at the EPGS Annual Meeting and Award Dinner.
The award, formed to honor the memory of Barbara Bell, is given to a physician “who has made significant contributions to the health and welfare of older adults, and who has improved the care of geriatric patients.”
Dr. Karlawish was recognized for this award due to his “tremendous investigative work in the development of Alzheimer’s disease treatments and diagnostics, informed consent, quality of life, and research and treatment decision-making,” according to a statement from EPGS.
Dr. Karlawish is a board-certified geriatrician who sees patients at PMC with mild cognitive impairment, Alzheimer’s disease, and other dementias or memory problems. As a professor of medicine, medical ethics and health policy, and neurology at the University of Pennsylvania, Dr. Karlawish also conducts research that focuses on the neuroethics and policy of aging, investigating issues on the development of Alzheimer’s disease treatments and diagnostics, biomarker-based concepts of disease, informed consent, and quality of life.
‘Dance for Health: Active Body, Active Mind’ Now Enrolling
Join the Penn Memory Center this spring for Dance for Health: Active Body, Active Mind, a program in collaboration with the Ralston Center.
The goal of Dance for Health: Active Body, Active Mind is to promote brain health and intergenerational connectedness. Individuals will participate in a dance session once per week and an intergenerational activity with students from area high schools one per month. Participants will also complete surveys before and after the program.
Who: Open to individuals 55 years of age and older who are willing to participate in a weekly dance session for three months.
Time: 9:30 a.m. to 11 a.m.
Date: Every Saturday from February 24th to June 2nd* (excluding Memorial Day weekend)
Place: Ralston Center, 3615 Chestnut Street, Philadelphia
To join us, please register by February 22nd by contacting Karletta Poland at 215-573-6095 or karletta.poland@uphs.upenn.edu
PMC caters to caregivers in retreat
by Joyce Lee
At the inaugural Caregiver Retreat hosted by the Penn Memory Center late last year, caregivers were encouraged to decompress and “take a break.”
An agenda filled with speakers, pet therapy, massages, journaling, clay workshops, and yoga gave caregivers an opportunity to take time for themselves, after having invested so much of their time, energy, and attention into the care of a loved one.
PMC welcomes new clinical research coordinator
The NACC study is the National Institute on Aging-funded initiative that follows older adults with normal cognition, mild cognitive impairment (MCI) and mild to moderate Alzheimer’s disease over time. Ferrara will help with scheduling and coordinating visits of research participants in the NACC cohort.
Matthew comes to PMC from the Center for Interdisciplinary Research on Nicotine Addiction, where he worked as a Clinical Research Assistant. Ferrara holds a bachelor’s of science in neuropsychology from Penn State University and is pursuing a master’s degree in Counseling and Mental Health Services at Penn. He hopes to earn a Ph.D. in clinical neuropsychology and work in the field of neurodegenerative diseases and traumatic brain injury in the future.
PMC presents ‘The Joint is Jumpin’ at Friday’s Memory Café
Join the Penn Memory Center on Friday, January 12, for a performance of the musical, “The Joint is Jumpin’” by the Philly Senior Stage Performers.
Friday, January 12 | 10:30 a.m. to noon
Christ Church Neighborhood House
20 N. American Street
Philadelphia, PA 19106
The Philly Senior Stage is a group dedicated to bringing the performing arts to senior adult communities, with the mission of using “the art form called theatre to unlock and unleash the creative energy residing in us all.”
The group has been performing since 2006, when founder Robb Hutter proposed acting and creative drama classes in the retirement community Shannondell at Valley Forge. The initiative quickly expanded to neighboring retirement communities, and now the Philly Senior Stage performs musicals, comedies, and dramas throughout the Greater Philadelphia area.
The group works on conducting theater workshops in senior communities, creating original theater shows from the life experiences of participants, and staging classical and contemporary plays with older adults as actors, with the aim of fostering dramatic self-expression and building community.
For more information, visit the Philly Senior Stage website. To RSVP, contact Alison Lynn at 215-360-0257 or alison.lynn@uphs.upenn.edu.
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