Jason Karlawish is a physician and writer.
He researches and writes about issues at the intersections of bioethics, aging, and the neurosciences. He is the author of The Problem of Alzheimer’s: How Science, Culture, and Politics Turned a Rare Disease into a Crisis and What We Can Do About It and the novel Open Wound: The Tragic Obsession of Dr. William Beaumont. His essays have been published in The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, Forbes, The Hill, The Los Angeles Times, The Philadelphia Inquirer, STAT, and The Washington Post. His STAT column Neurotransmissions examines the vast problem of dementia. A Professor of Medicine, Medical Ethics and Health Policy, and Neurology at the University of Pennsylvania, he is co-Director of the Penn Memory Center, where he cares for patients, and executive producer of the Age of Aging, a podcast that examines how to live well with an aging brain. He lives in Philadelphia.
Jason Karlawish writes STAT’s Neurotransmissions column
“As Peter strode across 20th Street, his mother’s apartment building came into view. Her one-bedroom home in Philadelphia’s historic Rittenhouse Square area was a four-minute walk from his home, a three-story row house where he lived with his wife and two children.
His pace was brisk because he was a man in a hurry, busy with the demanding work of middle-aged life as a father to two grade schoolers, husband to a wife, and leader of a start-up medical device company. This visit was part of his fourth job.
Peter is one among the 11 million Americans performing the work of caregiving. His responsibility is his mother, who is one of the 6 million people living with disabling cognitive impairments caused by dementia. Today’s caregiving task — a consequence of escalating challenges in her ability to use devices and appliances — was peculiar.
He had to change the channel on his mother’s Angela’s television ...”
To continue reading, click on “READ THE LATEST COLUMN” & for a bonus essay, read “Why at-home Alzheimer’s tests may do more harm than good” in The Philadelphia Inquirer
The ACED tool
Why have thousands of psychologists, physicians, caregivers and social workers from all over the world requested a copy of the ACED? Because they know that to promote the well-being and dignity of a person with marginal capacity, the person needs an assessment of the capacity for everyday decisionmaking.