John G. Cagle, PhD, Associate Professor at the University of Maryland at Baltimore School of Social Work will present “Improving Care at the End of Life during Concurrent Public Health Crises” at the April 4th Scientific Seminar Series. In person attendance is encouraged. To attend via Zoom, registration is required at bit.ly/36oi82G.
Are you interested in research about memory loss, dementia, and Alzheimer’s disease?
I am. I believe research is where the future is—treatments, interventions, discoveries—and, speaking as someone who was a caregiver to my mom who died from a type of frontotemporal dementia known as Pick’s Disease, I find hope and comfort in the promise of interventions for Alzheimer’s disease, dementia, and memory loss. The #BrainMatters Twitter chats described below, facilitated by the Johns Hopkins Alzheimer’s Disease Research Center (JHADRC), are pivotal to sharing critical information among the masses.
Researchers and members of the broader community who want to learn more about research are invited to follow the JHADRC’s “Memory & Aging” Twitter handle on Thursday, February 24 starting at noon ET to catch their #BrainMatters Twitter chat on the “State of Research on Memory Loss, Dementia and Alzheimer’s Disease.” It is very easy to do—simply be on Twitter during the event, and follow @JH_Memory_Aging. The chat will unfold in real time, and anyone may contribute to the conversation.
According to the Alzheimer’s Association’s website: “Recruiting and retaining research participants is now the greatest obstacle, other than funding, to developing the next generation of Alzheimer’s treatments. Individuals with dementia, caregivers and healthy volunteers are all needed to participate in clinical studies focused on Alzheimer’s and other dementias. Without clinical trials, there can be no better treatments, no prevention and no cure for Alzheimer’s disease.”
For the upcoming Twitter Chat, we look forward to hearing from Johns Hopkins researchers at the Agrawal Lab and the HEADS Center, and Drs. Rosenberg, Smith and Pettigrew, and from researchers with the George Washington University’s Institute for Brain Health and Dementia. They will explore the following topics:
The live #BrainMatters Twitter Chats have been an excellent opportunity to engage with leading researchers and advocates on brain health at Johns Hopkins University, throughout the Mid-Atlantic, and across the nation. Here’s what collaborators and past participants are saying about it:
“Volunteering gives voice to groups that can affect service, research and voting.”
-Jo Ann Scipio, RN, Delta Sigma Theta Annapolis Alumnae Chapter
“Alzheimer’s disease is a growing global health crisis. Research is critical to address this crisis, in order to achieve breakthroughs in treatment and prevention. These Twitter chats provide a platform for information sharing and discussion of some of the more pressing issues in brain health, early detection, health disparities, and research.”
-Ilene Rosenthal, Alzheimer’s Association Greater Maryland Chapter
“The Brain Matters collaboration is helping to elevate discussions on the importance of brain health, raising awareness of critical issues including equity, and engaging new audiences through interactive and insightful conversations – all free and open to the public!”
-David Parkes, AARP Global Council on Brain Health
“As geriatricians, we believe it is important to meet older adults and their families where they are, and for many, that is on Twitter! Our bodies have an incredible capacity to regenerate and heal. Supporting brain health helps us all thrive. Research helps us find a way forward.”
-Dr. Alicia Arbaje, Johns Hopkins JHAD-RCMAR
“The #BrainMatters chats have been a fun and innovative way to share emerging scientific findings on topics related to brain health, memory loss, and aging with members of the community.”
-Dr. Corinne Pettigrew, Johns Hopkins ADRC
#BrainMatters is a regional collaboration that is dedicated to sharing science-based information about brain health, health disparities, memory loss & Alzheimer’s disease and related dementias. In addition to the JHADRC, collaborators include the Greater Maryland Chapter of the Alzheimer’s Association, the AARP’s Global Council on Brain Health, the Johns Hopkins Alzheimer’s Disease Resource Center for Minority Aging Research (JHAD-RCMAR), and Delta Sigma Theta Alumnae Chapters from Annapolis and from Columbia, Maryland.
If you cannot make the live chat, you can catch up with the content later simply by searching #BrainMatters on Twitter. Doing so will also show content from prior chats on “Brain Health” and “Achieving Brain Health Equity.” You may also be interested in following #JHMemoryResearch over the coming months as the JHADRC will be sharing additional information about ongoing research studies, Research Team Spotlights, and Research Participant Testimonials. The entire @JH_Memory_Aging Twitter feed is chocked-full of golden nuggets!
Any questions? Email tony.teano@jhu.edu
By Anthony Teano, Communications Specialist
Alden L. Gross, PhD, an Associate Professor in the Division of Epidemiology of Aging at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and a Core Faculty member at the Center on Aging and Health in the Division of Gerontology at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine will present “Measurement and Structure of Cognition across the world: Statistical harmonization of the HCAP studies” at the March 7th Scientific Seminar Series. In person attendance is encouraged. To attend via zoom, registration is required at https://bit.ly/3gGC2rb
Hopkins Geriatricians Identify Biomarkers Linking Social Isolation & Mortality
Congratulations are in order to COAH champions Dr. Thomas Cudjoe, Shang-En Chung, Dr. David L. Roth, and Dr. Cynthia Boyd from the Division of Geriatric Medicine and Gerontology and Dr. Roland Thorpe, Jr., from the Bloomberg School of Public Health for their timely and significant research paper: “Getting under the skin: Social isolation and biological markers in the National Health and Aging Trends Study.” The full journal issue with this article went live on Feb. 6, 2022 and can be found here.
Also, collaborators outside of COAH included Dr. Carl Latkin from the Bloomberg School of Public Health and Sruthi Selvakumar, who was a Summer Research Trainee through the Division of Geriatric Medicine and Gerontology’s MSTAR Program.
Importantly, they found that social isolation and extreme social isolation are associated with higher levels of IL-6 and CRP, biomarkers of aging associated with deleterious health consequences over time—including increased mortality and morbidity.
Until now, social isolation was considered a risk factor for morbidity and mortality comparable to smoking, hypertension, and a sedentary lifestyle, but the science behind that deleterious association was not understood. Consequently, the discovery that social isolation is clearly linked to IL-6 or CRP may be instrumental to interventions mitigating social isolation’s negative health outcomes.
What follows is a brief interview with Dr. Cudjoe about it.
Tony Teano: How will this discovery help shape interventions?
Dr. Cudjoe: I think about this work as one of the steps in understanding how biological markers might be used as an outcome measure for social isolation intervention studies.
Tony Teano: What can older adults do to stay socially connected, especially now, given the COVID-19 pandemic?
Dr. Cudjoe: The last few years have been difficult for everyone. Due to a variety of factors the COVID-19 pandemic has been particularly burdensome for the health and well-being of older adults. My advice is to first stay safe practicing proper masking, physical distancing, and hand hygiene. Specifically, as it relates to staying socially connected, I believe its important for people to prioritize the practice of connecting with friends, families, and neighbors at regular and routine intervals. This could take the form of safe in-person interactions (masked, distanced, or outdoors), connecting using communication technologies (i.e. phone, Zoom, Facetime), or writing letters. At the core of this is nurturing our relationships.
Tony Teano: If people took away just one pearl of wisdom from your most recent research, what would you want that to be?
Dr. Cudjoe: Social isolation is not good for our bodies.
Tony Teano: What social isolation research is in the pipeline that you’re working on?
Dr. Cudjoe: I am actively working to understand what older adults think about social isolation and what they believe might be solutions to prevent or address this challenge.
By Anthony Teano, Communications Specialist