Latest News

By Chloe Elmer

When a family member falls ill or is incapable of managing his or her own finances, adult children and caregivers may feel overwhelmed taking over. This is where Building Bridges to Wealth hopes to step in. 

By Chloe Elmer

Dance for Health: Active Body, Active Mind — a weekly dance program jointly coordinated by Penn Memory Center and the Ralston Center — and its efforts to involve older African-Americans in West Philadelphia, were featured in a recent edition of WHYY’s NewsWorks.

Merchant, at center right, collaborates with Center for Digital Health team members (L to R) Jesse Goldshear, MPH, Elissa Klinger, SM, Emily Seltzer, MPH, Jeremy Asch, and Remi Gurak. A broad range of disciplines, including medicine, design, engineering, and business, contribute to the team’s innovations. (Credit: PennMedicine.org)

By Chloe Elmer

Social media posts typically include photos from recent vacations or thoughts on current events, but researchers at the Penn Center for Digital Health and the Penn Memory Center are watching social media posts with consent from patients to see if trends can show early signs of Alzheimer’s or other cognitive decline.

Penn Memory Center (PMC) research coordinators Kristin Harkins and Grace Stockbower have successfully graduated from the University of Pennsylvania’s Master of Public Health (MPH) Program.

Please join us for a special Memory Café at the Penn Museum from 5 p.m to 7 p.m. Wednesday, June 28.

At this free event, friends of the Penn Memory Center are invited to socialize and handle touchable artifacts from the museum and join a guided gallery tour.

After the event, guests are invited to attend the museum’s free outdoor summer concert series featuring the West Philadelphia Orchestra, an eclectic ensemble of musicians who play music with Eastern European folk influences and jazz, punk, and blues flair. Food and drinks are available for purchase at the concert.

Please RSVP to Alison Lynn, 215-360-0257 or alison.lynn@uphs.upenn.edu. Parking is limited, but attendees may try to park in Lot 7 adjoining the museum for $22. Public transportation is encouraged if possible.

In her ongoing exhibition, “Revelations and Transformation, Layers of Memory,” local artist Patricia Moss-Vreeland explores memory “as a meditation on who we are.” On June 20, she’ll invite members of the Penn Memory Center community to do the same.

Join PMC’s Felicia Greenfield and Moss-Vreeland for a free, one-time workshop sponsored by PMC. Guests will learn to become “creators through the lens of memory,” said Moss-Vreeland, who will also lead a guided tour of the exhibition. The workshop is open to PMC patients, research participants, and caregivers, and we can accommodate up to 20 guests.

Time: 5:30 p.m. to 7:30 p.m.
Date: June 20, 2017
Place: Perelman Center for Advanced Medicine, Second Floor, South Pavilion
RSVP: Felicia Greenfield at 215-662-4523 or felicia.greenfield@uphs.upenn.edu
*Light refreshments will be provided.*

Les Wolff stood at the edge of the circle, introduced himself, and threw a punch into the air before him. For the next few minutes, anytime his name was mentioned, a punch was thrown.

It was all part of an improv exercise at the inaugural Cognitive Comedy workshop, presented by the Penn Memory Center with local comedian Leah Lawler. The program is now seeking volunteers for its third “season.”

By Chloe Elmer

Picture a zombie, and images of horror movies will flash before your eyes.

The guttural sounds.

Lifeless eyes.

Loved ones now unrecognizable.

Anything but human.

In his latest Forbes column, “Alzheimer’s Disease Patients Aren’t Zombies; They’re People And We Need To Treat Them Like People,” Penn Memory Center Co-Director Jason Karlawish takes on the metaphor that Alzheimer’s patient are the living dead of Hollywood films and horror novels.