InSight Spring 2012

Features Include

• "Our research partners help drive home the fact that 'LP is OK'"- learn the truth about lumbar puncture and our participants' postive outlook on the procedure-- and how it helps research

• The fund "Hagamos la diferencia Participemos" - Your Participation makes the Difference - the Chris Clark Fund for Multicultural Recruitment and Retention, and how it will honor Dr. Clark's legacy and his work to build the Latino community's awareness of Alzheimer's

• A gift that funds Penn Memory Center's training in managing dementia in the family and the workplace- Mark Carter's contribution in memory of his father, Louis, Penn's first African-American tenured professor of social work

• A  brother's story about his sister's dementia and raising awareness in the African-American community

• More

Download a .pdf (12 pages)

InSight Year End 2011

Features Include

• "I want to do all that I can . . ."  Learn about the Penn Memory Center's new program -- Cognitive Fitness -- which may be an option for those who ask, "What specifically can I do to help maintain my memory?"

• Our new phone tree system improves accountability and frees front-desk staff to promptly answer and manage more complex calls

• More

Download a .pdf (6 pages)

Insight Fall 2011

Features include

• “Thinking it Through” -- Brain donation, vital to research on Alzheimer’s disease and lifelong brain health, requires commitment from surviving family members. A daughter moves past her own sadness and indecision, and honors her mother’s wish to be a brain donor.

• “Issues in Alzheimer’s” – Caregiver spouses face significantly risk to develop dementia themselves. A PMC class aids caregiver burden by offering insights, strategies, and more, worked on together.

• “From the News and Journals” – Chronic back pain can cause shrinkage in several brain areas including those key to working memory and attention-demanding tasks. Also, a look at the relationship between early-life study of music, and late-life cognition.

• Updates on Penn Memory Center activity, recognizing your gifts, and more.

Download a .pdf (8 pages)

InSight Winter | Year End 2010

Features include

• “Taking Our Research on the Road” – a look at the tremendous interest and participation in our brain-aging research by hundreds of enthusiastic and “resilient” residents at a local retirement living community

• ”Talking – and more –about MCI:” Two Penn Memory Center research partners with MCI describe their involvement with interview studies and other research related to better understanding this condition
•  

• Updates from the news and journals on a reliable family-performed quick screen for cognitive problems developed by researchers at Washington University in St. Louis; a study from the Mayo Clinic that found MCI earlier and more often in men, and how investigators at University of Pittsburgh found walking may help preserve grey matter.

• A feature on sleep as we age – beware the “PM’s”

• Updates on Penn Memory Center activity, recognizing your gifts, and more.

Download a .pdf (16 pages)

InSight - Spring/Summer 2010

Features Include

• Interviews with two individuals adjusting to living with Mild Cognitive Impairment; one who is open about his condition and another who’s “Keeping her MCI on the QT”

• Facts on MCI and the increased risk for developing dementia which it represents

• Updates from the news and journals about Social Security disability for those with an early-onset Alzheimer’s diagnosis; more evidence of a maternal link to AD, and a study suggesting a “purposeful life” may rebuff dementia

• What Aricept, Namenda and other current Alzheimer’s medications do, and don’t do

• "You must be the change you want to see in the world;" A talk with Penn Memory Center Director Dr. Steven Arnold, on what he learned as a participant in one of our diagnostic/brain aging studies

• updates on Penn Memory Center activity, recognizing your gifts, and more.

Download a .pdf (16 pages)

InSight Winter | Year End 2009

Features Include

• A family who remains in a partially terminated investigational drug trial because they believe the benefits to all outweigh the risks

• How enhanced cognitive testing could help us foresee who may be heading toward cognitive problems before symptoms are evident

• Our actively recruiting clinical trials; how to become a normal control, and the PMC’s newest line of healthy brain-aging research -- a study on how stress affects life-long brain health

• A look at selected journal articles on topics including helping families and caregivers understand that advanced dementia is a terminal illness, and how money-management troubles could signal other cognitive problems in elders

• Updates on Penn Memory Center activity, recognizing your gifts, and more.

Download a .pdf (16 pages)

InSight Light  Fall 2009

Features Include

• A fascinating interview with the man who brought Alzheimer’s disease to the comics –Woody Wilson, author of Rex Morgan, M.D.

• Alzheimer’s Disease and Dementia—What’s the Difference?

• Notable Outreach, Achievements, and Honors at the Penn Memory Center

• Info on clinical trials, and important roles in our research for people with normal cognition

• More

InSight Spring/Summer 2009

Features Include

• Penn Memory Center families helping Penn scientists discover the genetics of Alzheimer’s disease

• Brain donation from our Latino cohort

• A new test that can be used to determine if an individual with Mild Cognitive Impairment (MCI) will convert to AD, developed through contributions from Penn Memory Center research participants

• One donor’s special effort to go from donuts to dollars for AD research

• Thought-provoking items from the news and journals, updates on Penn Memory Center activity, recognizing your gifts, and more.

Newsletter Fall 2008/Winter 2009

Features Include

• "Why Alzheimer's Research Needs Cognitively Normal People" with brief features on some of our most dedicated normal controls, and an invitation to join us a normal control research partner

• Profiles of three new physicians in our PENN Memory Center: Dr. Roy Hamilton, Dr. Steven Huege, and Dr. David Wolk

• Info on our caregiver skills group led by new PENN Memory Center Psychologist Melissa Gartenberg Livney, PsyD.

• Info on the show “Alzheimer’s Disease: Facing the Facts,” an arresting and poignant look at the personal and societal impact of AD today, and what we may be facing tomorrow. This one-hour documentary, airing nationally on PBS television affiliates in 2009, has its roots in our Alzheimer’s Disease Center. It will air locally on WHYY-TV, Thursday January 22nd, 2009 at 10:00 pm.

• Thought-provoking items from the news and journals, updates on Penn Memory Center activity, recognizing your gifts, and more.