Clay Center Community Matters December 2015

Commun ty Matters Clay Center Presbyterian Manor Are you keeping your talent hidden?

Share it with us.

COMING UP IN COMMUNITY MATTERS:

Everyone has a story to tell

What’s your secret artistic talent? An upcoming edition of Community Matters will focus on Art is Ageless®.

The Art is Ageless® program encourages residents and other area seniors to express their creativity through an annual art competition and exhibit, musical and dramatic events, educational opportunities and current events discussions. What talent have you discovered?

If you’ve got a story about what inspires you to create, contact Heather Germann, marketing director, and your story could be featured in an upcoming edition of Community Matters.

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Visit ClayCenterPresbyterianManor.org and sign up to receive your newsletter via email.

A sweet first Christmas memory from 1929

December 2015

By Edwinna Sanneman My first Christmas that I remember was when my father gave me a small branch and tied to the branch was twine. The twine was quite long in length. All farmers had twine they kept from harvest of wheat or oats. Twine was very useful for them in many ways.

He told me to take the branch and start winding the twine up on the branch, and that would lead me to my Christmas present!

So I did start winding up twine on the branch down stairs and then it led me upstairs where there were two rooms.

One was a bedroom and the other a storage room. When I got to the top of the stairs the twine led me to the North room or storage room.

Going in that room, yes, I saw my red wagon that the twine led me to.

I also remember walking into the North room, the sound one would hear.

My parents bought sugar in a large sack and we would come to that storage room with a container to get sugar for the kitchen for my mother. And some grains of sugar would fall off and make a noise when we walked on the floor.

Send an angel this holiday season.

Special angels will be adorning holiday displays at every Presbyterian Manors of Mid-America (PMMA) senior living community.

The “angels” are ornaments that will arrive throughout the holiday season along with gifts to the annual Christmas Angel Appeal, which raises funds for the Good Samaritan Program for Benevolent Care.

If you would like to participate in the Angel Appeal, please email Development@pmma.org or call 800-336-8511.

Vehicle donations help others

The season of giving is here.

Wouldn’t it be great to know that your vehicle donation helped seniors who have outlived their financial resources receive the care they need this year? Turn that unneeded vehicle into holiday cheer and receive a tax deduction!

We accept many donations types including cars, RVs, boats, planes and more. Donating your vehicle will help seniors who have outlived

their financial resources at a Presbyterian Manors of Mid-America campus in so many ways. Call us at 844-490-GIVE (4483) or click the Support Us Now tab on our website,

ClayCenterPresbyterianManor.org, to access Vehicle Donation, fill out the form and we will take care of the rest.

Hooray for Halloween!

Tis the season, give for a reason.

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Community Matters is published monthly for residents and friends of Clay Center Presbyterian Manor by Presbyterian Manors of 501(c)(3) organization. Learn more at PresbyterianManors.org.

Heather Germann, Marketing Director and Senior Living Counselor, along with Carissa Wachsnicht, Dining Services Director, and Carla Andrewson, CMA Assisted Living, enjoy the ghoulishly good treats at the Halloween party.

Jessica Lippe, Health Services Director, makes no “bones” about her pregnant profile.

Mike Derousseau, executive director Heather Germann, marketing director To submit or suggest articles for this publication, contact Heather Germann, hgermann@pmma.org.

Telephone: 785-632-5646 Fax: 785-632-5874 Address: 924 Eighth St., Clay Center, KS 67432-2620

Our mission: We provide quality senior services guided by Christian values.

ClayCenterPresbyterianManor.org

2 COMMUNITY MATTERS DECEMBER 2015

Clay Center Presbyterian Manor staff had a great time dressing up on Halloween and gave residents a “howling good” Halloween party.

Potential treatments ahead for Alzheimer’s Disease Foundation announces promising research in the fight against the illness When geriatrician and neuroscientist Dr. Howard Fillit went to medical school in the early 1970s, he’d never heard of Alzheimer’s disease.

Since 1998, though, Fillit has directed the Alzheimer’s Drug Discovery Foundation, which supports the search for effective treatments for the disease.

“I’ve seen in my lifetime amazing progress,” Fillit said at a press briefing to discuss some of the more promising research his organization is funding. “We have caught up… to understanding as much about the biological mechanisms of Alzheimer’s disease as we know about cancer and heart disease.”

But although scientists have cured mice of Alzheimer’s hundreds of times, all the basic knowledge that they have accumulated has yet to translate into new treatments for patients, Fillit said.

He predicts that is about to change. “In three to five years, we’re going to have potentially more than one drug approved that has some diseasemodifying effect,” Fillit said, noting that nearly 100 human trials of potential Alzheimer’s treatments are now underway.

No Cure As of Now

Alzheimer’s disease affects an estimated 5.1 million Americans 65 and older, according to the Alzheimer’s Association, which notes on its website that the disease “is the only cause of death in the top 10 in America that cannot be prevented, slowed or cured.”

And since aging is the leading risk factor for Alzheimer’s, the numbers of affected Americans will only explode as boomers get older, unless effective treatments can at least stave off the

disease. In 10 years, the number of Americans 65 and older with Alzheimer’s is expected to hit 7.1 million – an increase of 40 percent over 2015.

Much of the research focus has been on drugs to rid the brain of amyloid plaque, deposits of a protein whose role in Alzheimer’s has been widely debated. According to a 20-year-old hypothesis, the build-up of amyloid in the brain causes memory loss in Alzheimer’s. However, anti-amyloid drugs have failed in large clinical trials, raising questions about the role of amyloid plaque in Alzheimer’s.

The Forces at Play

Together, aging, genetics, inflammation and amyloid trigger the degeneration of neurons in Alzheimer’s disease, said Dr. Frank Longo, chair of neurology and neurosciences at Stanford University, who won the inaugural Melvin R. Goodes Prize for Excellence in Alzheimer’s Drug Discovery from Fillit’s foundation.

“This is a highly robust disease,” Longo said, so you “can’t just chip away at the edges.”

New Medications

One of the drugs developed by Longo and his colleagues is expected to begin Phase II safety and efficacy testing in patients with mild to moderate Alzheimer’s in the second quarter of 2016, Longo said. Phase I safety tests in healthy people found no significant side effects, he said.

“We’re affecting multiple (Alzheimer’s-related) mechanisms.

We’ve treated mice at extremely late stages (of Alzheimer’s) and found true reversal,” Longo said.

Thinkstock photo

By Rita Rubin for Next Avenue

Alzheimers: ‘It's a highly robust disease.You can’t just chip away at the edges.’

To make sure that what they were seeing wasn’t related to the fact that the mice were genetically engineered to develop severe Alzheimer’s, he said, they also tested the drug in normal mice who had reached the ripe old age of 2 years, ancient for a mouse. With normal aging in both humans and other mammals, the numbers of certain types of nerve cells in the brain shrink, but the drug was able to reverse the decline in the aged mice that did not have Alzheimer’s, Longo said.

Treatments in the Pipeline

Other promising research that Fillit’s foundation is funding includes:

“Repurposing” a low-dose form of an epilepsy drug called levetiracetam to treat amnestic mild cognitive impairment (aMCI). MCI causes a slight but noticeable decline in memory and thinking skills, and aMCI predominantly affects memory. People with MCI are at a higher risk of developing Alzheimer’s disease. In a phase II trial, the drug significantly improved memory in elderly aMCI patients.

TREATMENTS

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CLAY CENTER PRESBYTERIAN MANOR 3

Art is Ageless right around the corner

The Art is Ageless® program encourages Presbyterian Manors of Mid-America residents and other area seniors to express their creativity through an annual art competition and exhibit, musical and dramatic events, educational opportunities and current events discussions. The annual competition is coming up at the beginning of 2016, so keep an eye out for more details!

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Clay Center Presbyterian Manor 924 Eighth St. Clay Center, KS 67432-2620

TREATMENTS continued from page 1

Vespers

12/6 Pastor Ryan Lynch 12/13 Pastor Grant Clay 12/20 Pastor Ron Graham 12/27 Father R. Weber 4 COMMUNITY MATTERS DECEMBER 2015

Chapel

12/1 Pastor Graham 12/8 Pastor Stewart 12/15 Pastor Lynch 12/22 Pastor Coleman 12/29 Pastor Schoneweis

Using a fat-soluble form of vitamin B1, or thiamine, to increase glucose (sugar) metabolism and slow cognitive decline associated with aMCI or mild Alzheimer’s disease.

The brain uses more energy in the form of glucose and oxygen than any other organ, and if it doesn’t get enough, cells will degenerate, Fillit said. “Thiamine itself doesn’t get into the brain very well,” he said. “This is basically sort of a better vitamin.”

Testing a drug in patients with mild-to-moderate Alzheimer’s that stimulates the clearing of amyloid from the brain, reduces inflammation and improves cognition.

None of the other anti-inflammatory drugs that have been tested in Alzheimer’s have worked, Fillit said.