Tests that measure the sense of smell may soon become common in neurologists’ offices. Scientists have been finding increasing evidence that the sense of smell declines sharply in the early stages of Alzheimer’s, and now a new study from the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania published today in the Journal of Alzheimer’s Disease confirms that administering a simple “sniff test” can enhance the accuracy of diagnosing this dreaded disease.
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NIA Neuroscience leader retiring after almost 30 years
Dr. Creighton “Tony” Phelps will retire later this month after nearly 30 years at the National Institute on Aging, the NIA recently announced.
Officially, Phelps is the deputy director of the Division of Neuroscience, but he is best known as director of the Alzheimer’s Disease Centers (ADC) program, of which the Penn Memory Center is a partner organization.
“It’s about more than just how many centers he’s helped launch,” said Dr. Eliezer Masliah, director of the Division of Neuroscience, in the NIA announcement. “He has built a wonderful relationship with each and every center. ADC staff really trust Tony and value his feedback. He’s been an invaluable asset that we, as well as the centers in particular, will truly miss.”
NIA director Dr. Richard Hodes said Phelps’ impact can be felt across the entire field of Alzheimer’s research.
“Building and strengthening some of NIA’s flagship research programs and refining how we define Alzheimer’s disease, he has helped usher in a new era of Alzheimer’s disease research,” he said.
Join us at the year’s final Memory Café
The Memory Café returns Wednesday, December 21, 2016 with special guest Svitanya, a women’s vocal ensemble whose mission is to bring the beautiful folk music of Eastern Europe to a wide range of audiences.
The group’s repertoire, performed a cappella or with traditional instruments, draws upon a variety of regional traditions. While certain songs are strong field-working tunes, others are more rhythmic dance songs, all invoking harmonies indigenous to the region.
Memory Café is held 10:30 a.m. to noon monthly at Christ Church Neighborhood House, 20 N. American Street, Philadelphia. To RSVP, contact Alison Lynn at 215-360-0257 or alison.lynn@uphs.upenn.edu.
PMC, CHOP seeking volunteers to work with kids
The Penn Memory Center and the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP) are teaming up for a program that pairs volunteers with CHOP patients and other children in the community.
Volunteers will work with children on a range of activities including reading, creating art, engaging with music, and playing with children of a variety of ages.
This program is being piloted at the South Philadelphia Community Health and Literacy Center, which is located at 1700 S. Broad Street, Philadelphia, PA. This is the home of the CHOP Care Network (South Philadelphia), The Philadelphia Free Library, and the DiSilvestro Recreation Center.
Volunteers must be able to volunteer for at least 90 minutes once a week, provide immunization records (MMR, Varicella, Tdap, Influenza, and PPD/TB), obtain Child Safety Clearances (provided and paid for by CHOP), and attend a short CHOP Volunteer Orientation and training session.
For more information, please contact Megan Fucci at (215) 614-7612 or megan.fucci@uphs.upenn.edu.
Karlawish tapped for PA Long-Term Care Council
Penn Memory Center Co-Director Dr. Jason Karlawish has been appointed by Gov. Tom Wolf to serve on Pennsylvania Long-Term Care Council, Wolf’s office announced Tuesday.
More human-like model of Alzheimer’s better mirrors tangles in the brain
Tangled up brain fibrils made up of a rogue protein known as tau are the hallmark of Alzheimer’s disease (AD) that likely hold the key to treatments, making them of great interest to researchers. Mimicking the formation and spread of these tangles in animal models with greater accuracy allows scientists to better investigate new therapies to stop or slow their spread.
A new animal model developed at Penn Medicine using tau tangles isolated from the brains of Alzheimer’s patients rather than synthetic tau tangles paints a closer picture of the tau pathology in the AD brain, researchers from the Center for Neurodegenerative Disease Research (CNDR) at the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania reported in the print issue of the Journal of Experimental Medicine. Seeding normal, wildtype mice with the highly potent Alzheimer’s brain-tau (AD-tau) protein induced damaging tangles in their brains for study, mirroring a more realistic progression of tau tangles seen in AD patients’ brains.
Project Home: Bringing free classical music to the PMC community
Violist Rimbo Wong knows the stereotype — that classical music is for an exclusive audience — but, working with the Penn Memory Center, she hopes to shatter it.
The ArtistYear fellow from the Curtis Institute of Music is spending a year in service to the Philadelphia community with what she calls “Project Home.” She will bring classical music into the homes of Penn Memory Center patients who have Alzheimer’s disease or other types of cognitive impairments.
ArtistYear Fellow Rimbo Wong from Penn Memory Center on Vimeo.
Social worker Alison Lynn added to PMC team
Former Penn Memory Center intern Alison Lynn has joined the team as a full-time social worker.
As assistant director of care programs, Lynn will assist Felicia Greenfield, director of clinical research operations and care programs, in all aspects of psychosocial support including but not limited to patient and caregiver education and counseling, caregiver classes, support groups, Memory Cafés and other PMC programs, and supervision of social work interns.
Lynn will also coordinate The NACC Study, specifically with participant recruitment, scheduling, and assessments.
“I’m delighted that Alison accepted the offer,” Greenfield said. “She possesses keen clinical and excellent coordination skills that make her an ideal fit for this role.”
Ahead of next new Alzheimer’s treatment, looking to history to temper expectations
Joe Freshman is 14 years old and has never known a new Alzheimer’s disease (AD) treatment approved by the Food and Drug Administration. Study leaders hope that he’ll see one before returning from winter break, but one Penn Memory Center researcher cautions that a new FDA-approved drug alone isn’t necessarily “the answer to our prayers.”
Pharmaceutical company Lilly is testing the drug Solanezumab, designed to target amyloid, which physicians and researchers think is at least partially responsible for AD. Results of this study will be released by the end of 2016, and if the results indicate that this drug helps patients, “Alzheimer’s doctors will have a new drug to prescribe and also a new way to talk about the disease,” PMC Co-Director Dr. Jason Karlawish wrote in his latest Forbes column.
Penn Medicine cares for local community through CAREs grant
Penn Medicine, while acting upon its mission to work with the Philadelphia community, provides annual grants to staff, physicians, and medical students to support their community service programs. Past programs have helped students purchase textbooks, receive SAT and college readiness tutoring, and provide outpatient care those people who would not have seen a clinician without the efforts of the Penn Medicine CAREs grant.
Last year, a CAREs grant was awarded to Tigist Hailu’s Typical Day project. Hailu, the Penn Memory Center coordinator for diversity in research and education, used the photo-elicitation project to better understand the daily lives of people with mild cognitive impairment.
Hailu gave 12 participants a point-and-shoot camera and instructed them “to capture their everyday life, things that either frustrated or challenged their memory,” she said. Hailu partnered with photographer Damari McBride, who photographed portraits of the participants to accompany the images taken by the participants themselves.
“The goal,” Hailu said, “is really to use the participant-generated images along with the quotes from interviews, and also the portraits taken by the photographer, to raise awareness about cognitive impairment in our community.”
Through Typical Day, Hailu shared a vivid and important window into the lives of friends, family, and neighbors living with mild cognitive impairment.
A public gallery of Typical Day portraits and stories opened in late September at the Perelman Center for Advanced Medicine and will be exhibited throughout Philadelphia once it moves beyond Penn’s campus. A more complete and permanent exhibit (with more information) is found online at www.mytypicalday.org.
— By David Ney
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