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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. In this particular activity, participants were challenging their memory recalling both the names and unique actions from around the circle.

“For people who are getting older, it’s very important not only to exercise your mind, but to be aware that you’re capable of new things by not just what you’re doing but by watching what others do,” Wolff said.

Joseph and Dorothea Jenkins (right) listen as Penn Memory Center intern Tobi Akindoju presents the results of his research at the University of Pennsylvania last summer.

Joseph Jenkins was skeptical when he heard the Penn Memory Center was conducting research in his neighborhood.

A retired SEPTA employee living in West Philadelphia, he had spent his fair share of time participating in other organizations’ surveys and questionnaires about his community without ever seeing a result.

There was the bus station shelter he wanted to see installed on a nearby street corner.

No action.

Then there was that meeting at White Rock Baptist Church, where city officials made promise after promise about other improvements to the city.

No action.

“They never do anything,” he said. “Every time we have a meeting like this, nothing ever happens.”

The Penn Memory Center is pleased to invite our patients and friends to a new pop-up café at Christ Church Neighborhood House in Old City. This program is exclusively for people with memory problems, including Alzheimer’s disease, and their partners/families. Hours for this free café will be announced monthly.

“The challenges of living with memory loss can sever social connection at a time when it is needed the most,” said Felicia Greenfield, LCSW. “Memory café gatherings are a way for people with memory loss and their companions to come together to make new friendships.”

The Easton Home’s Memory Kitchen (Screenshot from www.presbyterianseniorliving.com)

Nursing homes and assisted living facilities across the nation are slowly transitioning to create specialized memory units for their dementia patients.

The idea behind these Memory Lane designs — which sometimes include features such as a cast iron stove or a wood-paneled radio — is “reminiscence as therapy,” according to the Asssociated Press.

An elderly man suffering from dementia soils himself while shuffling down a nursing home hallway. A nurse finds him and leads him back to his room, cleaning up the mess left behind while a young boy visiting his grandmother watches in disgust. Across town, two parents bend over their infant child on the changing table and celebrate the accomplishment of yet another dirty diaper.

The older man and the child are similar in some ways, but how society responds to them is quite different. And if people living with dementia are to do so with dignity, the responsibility of ensuring they do falls on those around them, Dr. Jason Karlawish said at the ADC Caregiver Workshop at the UC Davis MIND Institute earlier this month.

“If we’re going to find dignity in dementia…we’re going to have to confront our feelings of disgust and our failure to bestow dignity to persons with Alzheimer’s disease,” said Karlawish, co-director of the Penn Memory Center.

The Penn Memory Center is pleased to invite our patients and friends to a new pop-up café at Christ Church Neighborhood House in Old City. This program is exclusively for people with memory problems, including Alzheimer’s disease, and their partners/families. Hours for this free café will be announced monthly.

“The challenges of living with memory loss can sever social connection at a time when it is needed the most,” said Felicia Greenfield, LCSW. “Memory café gatherings are a way for people with memory loss and their companions to come together to make new friendships.”

The American public is shifting towards acceptance of doctor-assisted suicide in cases of patients with terminal disease. But what about when the patient is not terminal, but suffers from a neurodegenerative disease that will rob him of his dignity?

A year after comedian Robin Williams’ suicide, his widow announced that he had Lewy Body dementia in addition to Parkinson’s disease. Had he lived on, he would have begun losing the ability to move, think clearly, and make decisions.

In his latest Forbes column, Penn Memory Center Co-Director Jason Karlawish writes that the stigma associated with neurodegenerative diseases is more closely connected with the prognosis than with the diagnosis.

“As we pursue prevention, we’ll be labeling persons with neurodegenerative diseases at a stage when their disease is largely ahead of them,” he writes. “The ways we talk about living with Alzheimer’s disease, about the future after an early diagnosis, will shape whether we feel stigma and therefore a threat to our dignity and so our desire to be dead.”

Read the full column at www.forbes.com.

A new campaign for Penn Neurosciences prominently features the work of the Penn Memory Center (PMC) and Co-Director Dr. Jason Karlawish.

One of three videos hosted on pennmedicine.org/neuro interviews an Alzheimer’s disease patient named Don and his wife of 35 years, Corinne.