Dr. Karlawish a researcher on the Healthy Brain Research Network and the Cognitive Aging Communication Project, both funded supplements to the UPenn Prevention Research Center. He also serves as the director of the Penn Memory Center. Dr. Karlawish writes about what to look for and the risks involved with allowing the disease to progress without intervention.
Read about the signs to look for and his personal experience with an aging parent here. Tweet about your experiences, using the hashtag #DisruptDementia and tag @AARP and @jasonkarlwish.
PRC Investigator, Dr. Jason Karlawish joined S.D. Stites and R. Milne to study how a bio marker-based diagnosis can help a patient during each stage of Alzheimer’s Disease. The stigma or shame that can come with the disease can affect how a patient feels about themselves. Dr. Karlawish and his colleagues explored how changes in the way a patient is diagnosed can help address these stigmas.
Read more about the Healthy Brain Research Network here.
UPenn PRC researcher and Penn Medicine physician Jason Karlawish was one of the top Penn experts taking part in a day-long series of health research-related presentations for the 50th anniversary gathering of the Penn Class of 1966.
Karlawish addressed the challenges that Alzheimer’s disease presents to science and society. “The other area of research we’re doing, in addition to better ways to diagnose or treat the disease is to figure out better ways to learn how to live with the disease and address some of the emotional, social and cultural challenges we face as we push these diagnoses into increasingly more normal and non-clinically significant stages.”
“To review and discuss the novel ethical challenges that need to be overcome for successful performance of trials in the preclinical stage of AD, a multi-stakeholder group met in a 1-day summit entitled “Ethical challenges of future Alzheimer’s disease clinical research” held in Barcelona in October 2014. This reunion was organized by the Barcelonaβeta Brain Research Center, the research institute where the Pasqual Maragall Foundation conducts all its scientific activities devoted to clinical research for the prevention of AD. This discussion group included experts from academia, including AD researchers and bioethicists, patients’ organizations and regulatory agencies. This article summarizes the outcome of that meeting, where these ethical and policy challenges were debated and recommendations to address them throughout the research process were proposed, discussed, and agreed”
In the November 7, 2015 edition of Forbes magazine, Jason Karlawish, MD, Principal Investigator on the UPenn PRC Cognitive Aging Project and Healthy Brain Research Network, examines the public stigma of neurodegenerative diseases and how Robin Williams’ suicide brings to light how patients and their families deal with the implications of illnesses with progressive decline.
The University of Pennsylvania Prevention Research Center (UPenn PRC) is a community-engaged research center that was founded in 2014. The UPenn PRC’s mission is to improve the health of people in Philadelphia, Southeastern Pennsylvania, and beyond by preventing, reducing, and treating chronic diseases. The center’s primary focus is on implementation of evidence-based strategies to improve patient and provider communication to optimize clinical and community-based management of cancer in diverse older adults.