Latest News

If you’re like many Americans, getting a good night’s sleep can often seem out of reach. A new study in JAMA Internal Medicine shows that practicing mindfulness meditation can significantly improve the quality of one’s sleep. As Anahad O’Connor points out in The New York Times – Well – Health, this can be particularly relevant to Americans older than 55, about half of whom have some form of sleep trouble. You can read the JAMA study here.

A group of musicians, all suffering, to varying degrees, from dementia, Alzheimer’s or Parkinson’s disease, call themselves The Fifth Dementia and jam together twice a week. PBS NewsHour visited with the musicians and their families to learn how music has made a difference in their lives, by helping them stay active and connected. You can read the report and watch a video here.

The students of the Penn Neuroscience Graduate Group are hosting a Neuroscience Public Lecture entitled “Degeneration in the Aging Brain,” on Thursday, March 12th in Smilow Auditorium at 6:30pm. This FREE event will feature 3 fifteen minute TED-style talks from Penn Neuroscience faculty Virginia Lee, Alice Chen-Plotkin, and Harry Ischiropoulos. A reception will follow.

Registration and more information can be found here (https://nggglia.wordpress.com/neurolecture/).

Date: Thursday, March 12th, 6:30pm (Check-in begins at 6pm)
Location: Smilow Center for Translational Research Auditorium, 3400 Civic Center Blvd, Philadelphia, PA, 19104

A Silicon Valley health start-up, Neurotrack,  is developing a computerized visual test that aims to accurately identify people at risk of Alzheimer’s. The test requires no language or motor skills; participants view images on a monitor while a camera tracks their eye movements. According to Scientific American, “The test draws on the research of Neurotrack co-founder Stuart Zola of Emory University who studies learning and memory in monkeys. When presented with two images—one novel, the other familiar—primates will fixate longer on the novel one. If the hippocampus is damaged, as it is in Alzheimer’s, however, the subject spends equal time looking at each image.”

You can read the Scientific American article here.

Registration is open for the IOA’s May 5 Sylvan M. Cohen 2015 Annual Retreat: “Aging with Financial Security: Addressing the Challenges of Cognitive Aging and Impairment.” Poster submission is now open as well. Click here to submit your poster information. Deadline for poster submission is April 24.

A study has uncovered what causes people to experience stigmatizing reactions to persons with Alzheimer’s disease dementia.

Researchers –including Rebecca Johnson, M.A. Princeton University Department of Sociology, Jason Karlawish, MD, associate director of the Penn Memory Center, Pamela Sankar, PhD of the Department of Medical Ethics and Health Policy, and Kristin Harkins, research coordinator at the Penn Memory Center — presented these results at the American Public Health Association annual meeting in November 2014.

“This project on Alzheimer’s stigma was sparked by an observation,” says Johnson. “Although researchers, clinicians and the public often talk about how those with Alzheimer’s face stigma, there was a lack of clarity about what features of Alzheimer’s prompt stigmatizing reactions in others.”

The online experiment with 800 adults from the U.S. general population had participants read a story about a patient with symptoms that described mild stage dementia. Participants were randomized to one of nine unique stories that differed in two key features: the disease label (“Alzheimer’s” versus “traumatic brain injury” versus no label), and the prognosis (“symptoms will get better” versus “stay the same” versus “worsen”). Next, the participants answered questions about their attitudes towards the person in the story, such as what emotions they felt and whether they thought the patient’s friends would start to distance themselves from the patient.

All participants read a story about a man with mild stage dementia, but some read that his disabilities were caused by Alzheimer’s while others read that that they were caused by brain injury or they did not have a cause. And the prognosis varied as well. These variations in the label and the prognosis allowed the researchers to test whether the disease label or the prognosis drive stigmatizing reactions.

Learning that the dementia symptoms were caused by Alzheimer’s didn’t prompt more stigmatizing responses than from the other possible causes. In short, the disease label did not influence stigma. Instead, stigmatizing reactions were more likely from people whose story described that the patient’s symptoms would get worse.

The study suggests that one of the best ways to minimize stigmatizing reactions for Alzheimer’s patients is to emphasize the range of clinical outcomes and prognoses people may have. The researchers concluded that it is also important that public messaging around Alzheimer’s should reflect the broad range of levels of the disease rather than just the most severe cases. Most importantly, the results suggest the need to understand the potential for stigma in persons in the “pre-clinical” stage of the disease. This stage — which is still under study and not yet used in clinical practice — describes an asymptomatic person who has Alzheimer’s biomarker pathology. It is a stage defined by prognosis and if this study of stigma is correct, then people with the label may experience stigma.

To listen to a recording of the presentation at the APHA meeting, click here.

In a Wealth Matters column in The New York Times, stories from financial advisers illuminate the challenges for patients and their families. You can read the column here.

Watch the ‪Alzheimer’s‬ Research Summit live on Feb 9 and 10 at http://videocast.nih.gov/ and follow on Twitter @ADSummit15‬ for highlights.

On February, 23, 2015, the Penn Memory Center at the Perelman Center for Advanced Medicine will be moving down the hall to the new Penn Neuroscience Center.

Our address remains the same:

Penn Memory Center at the Penn Neuroscience Center
Perelman Center for Advanced Medicine
3400 Civic Center Boulevard, South Pavilion, 2nd Floor
Philadelphia, PA 19104

Join us on May 5, 11:30am – 5:00pm, for the Institute on Aging’s Sylvan M. Cohen 2015 Annual Retreat:  “Aging with Financial Security: Addressing the Challenges of Cognitive Aging and Impairment.” 

A rapidly aging U.S. population means older adults’ financial well-being and security is becoming an urgent public health concern.  The five million people living with Alzheimer’s disease dementia are vulnerable to financial abuse or exploitation, or bad financial decisions. In addition, age-related cognitive changes also put older adults at risk. These problems are especially significant as older adults may have limited time or capacity to recover financial losses. “Aging with Financial Security: Addressing the Challenges of Cognitive Aging and Impairment” will examine the nature and scope of the problem, its challenges, and possible solutions. Experts in adult protective service, academics, advocacy and government will present cutting edge research and innovative solutions to support the financial well-being of older adults.

For more information email Aging@mail.med.upenn.edu or call 215-898-7801.

The deadline to participate in the poster session is April 24, 2015.