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InSight Spring 2013
Features Include
"Setting the standard of care: How a diagnostic follow-up visit provides education, resources and support"--An outline of the Penn Memory Center's diagnostic follow-up visit and how it helps families and patients with Alzheimer's understand what comes next
"Scientists, families and patients debate the link between anesthesia and Alzheimer’s disease"--Science writer Lisa Bain examines the potential for cognitive decline in patients with cognitive impairments following surgery with anesthesia
"Announcing an Alzheimer’s diagnosis: One family’s journey from secrecy to openness"--Colette Cassidy shares the story of telling her family and loved ones her mother had Alzheimer's disease
"Take one poem and call me in the morning: The power of language arts to boost memory, imagination and delight"--Deborah Fries reports on how the Alzheimer's Poetry Project and similar programs help boost memory for patients with Alzheimer's disease
"Growing with dementia: How dementia transforms patients and the families who care for them"--Freelance writer Colleen Davis shares the story of struggles and triumphs in caring for her mother, a Penn Memory Center patient diagnosed with dementia
InSight Fall/Winter 2012
Features Include
"Team Babcock's journey: A family's search for a 'cure' leads them to hope and understanding": The story of Penn Memory Center research participant Warren Babcock's contribution to Alzheimer's disease research in the bapineuzumab study.
"Examining a body of evidence": A story by freelance writer Deborah Fries who struggles to make sense of her father's mixed diagnoses using the sparse evidence at her disposal.
"Lost, then found, in a good book": Former news anchor and passionate Alzheimer's disease advocate Colette Cassidy shares six titles that helped her and her family deal with her mother's early onset Alzheimer's disease.
Download a .pdf (12 pages)
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
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
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
