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Having “meaningful engagement in life” can improve one’s mood, thinking, and, ultimately, health, but older adults can lose some of that engagement in retirement.

A new collaboration between the Penn Memory Center and Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP) offers a solution through the Building Bridges Intergenerational Program, which was recently featured in The Philadelphia Inquirer.

The program brings together older adults, some with cognitive impairment, as volunteers to read to or play with CHOP patients.

The volunteers “really enjoy working with the kids and seeing their faces light up,” said Megan Fucci, a PMC clinical social worker. “I hear all the time, ‘I wish I could take pictures,’ because they want to remember it.”

Click here to read the Inquirer story on the program.

Click here to learn more or to get involved.

By Chloe Elmer

Four years ago, frustrated by a series of inconclusive visits to other doctors, Eli and Janet Caplan scheduled an appointment with the Penn Memory Center, where Janet finally received the diagnosis they needed to hear: Alzheimer’s disease.

“I would give everything I have not to have known the Penn Memory Center,” said Eli Caplan, “but since I’m one of the unfortunate persons to have a loved one afflicted with the most scourging disease — Alzheimer’s — I’m grateful to be here.”

By Chloe Elmer

New technologies can help secure a more definitive diagnosis of Alzheimer’s disease but may not yet be available to the average person.

Imaging Dementia—Evidence for Amyloid Scanning — the IDEAS study — is testing whether the amyloid PET scan should be made available to Medicare patients.

By Chloe Elmer

Sometimes, in traveling, the fastest route to a destination requires the traveler to abandon familiar side roads in favor of a newly constructed highway.

In Alzheimer’s disease research, that highway is biomarker-based research. In a special report for the Alzheimer’s Association, Penn Memory Center Co-Director Dr. Jason Karlawish wrote that biomarkers are changing the future of Alzheimer’s disease research.

“In the history of medicine,” Karlawish wrote, “one means to progress is when we make the decision that our assumptions and definitions of disease are no longer consistent with the scientific evidence.”

The Penn Memory Center (PMC) seeks a passionate, collaborative individual to join our team as Coordinator for Multicultural Recruitment and Retention. A core mission of the PMC is diversity in research, education, and training, with a particular focus on Philadelphia’s African-American community.

(To apply for this position, visit https://jobs.hr.upenn.edu/postings/30822)

There’s more than one way to define elder justice.

Elder justice could mean tackling financial abuse by training financial professionals to recognize red flags in clients’ behavior. It could also mean teaching caregivers and EMTs to recognize signs of neglect.

A new series of webinars from the Department of Justice’s Elder Justice Initiative features a diverse collection of professionals sharing how their experiences and expertise can help care for older adults.

Upcoming webinars include:

• “Assessing Cognitive Capacity in Elder Abuse Cases”
• “How EMTs Can Help Identify and Report Elder Abuse”
• “Empowering Faith Communities in the Prevention and Intervention of Elder Abuse”
• “Collecting Evidence in Physical Abuse & Neglect Cases”

For a complete list of the webinars with descriptions and links to registration, click here.

Photos by Chloe Elmer

The copper-art exhibit “Carl Duzen: Copper // Denying Dementia Its Due,” was given a warm welcome by around 100 people during a reception Wednesday night at the Main Line Art Center. Carl Duzen, 80, a Penn Memory Center patient who was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease in 2014, was joined by wife Susan Jewett, 70, to greet attendees and talk about their co-created art.

By Chloe Elmer

No one wants to be the “bad guy” when it comes to telling older adults what they should or should not be doing at their age.

Family members and caregivers for elderly persons are usually the first to notice signs of their loved ones losing their ability to drive; however, they often don’t want to be the one ultimately responsible for taking the keys.

In a recent Philadelphia Inquirer article on the topic, Penn Memory Center Co-Director Dr. Jason Karlawish calls the issue of seniors driving dangerously a “public health issue.”

Speaking at the Wharton School of Business AXA graduate summit, PMC Co-Director Dr. Jason Karlawish told an audience of banking and financial service industry professionals that they were on the “front lines” when it comes to detecting cognitive impairment.  

Karlawish spoke of whealthcare, where health and wealth meet, and how one of the first things that people who are impaired lose is the ability to manage money. He added that banking and financial service industries are often on the front lines of screening and detection for impairment, and those involved in the industry should be aware of how to handle certain situations.

By Queen Muse

For many years, a diagnosis of Alzheimer’s disease was often not given until signs of serious memory and cognitive problems were apparent. Today, patients can be diagnosed earlier in the disease process as with Mild Cognitive Impairment or mild stage Alzheimer’s disease dementia. In the future, routine diagnosis of Alzheimer’s disease will likely rely on gene and biomarker testing and occur before symptoms even begin.

Early diagnosis brings opportunities to prevent cognitive and functional losses and to plan for these losses, but a diagnosis of Alzheimer’s disease can also bring challenges.