Memory Keepers Medical Discovery Team-CERDAR

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Memory Keepers Medical Discovery Team-CERDAR

The Center for Community Engaged Rural Dementia and Alzheimer’s Research (CERDAR) is rural focused.

10/10/2025

CERDAR Team presented at the St. Louis County Health and Human Services Conference this week! We had some great discussion with the audience on rural perspectives of living with memory loss, getting a diagnosis, the impacts of winter weather, and assets of living rurally.

10/01/2025

Thank you Thief River Falls for a fantastic Brain Train Event! We hope those who visited walked away with a bit more understanding about brain health and healthy aging!

BIG thank you to our station hosts who came together to make the day happen!

05/15/2025

'Tis the season for Healthy Aging Expos! Team members Kelsie Larson and Natalya Walker-Muller enjoyed a day at the Detroit Lakes Celebrate Aging Expo! Thank you Essentia Health & Leighton Media for having us!

05/01/2025

CERDAR team members Kirsten Cruikshank and Natalya Walker-Muller enjoyed spending the day in Eveleth at their Senior Expo! Thank you AEOA for having us!

03/24/2025

Shout out CERDAR Team for presenting at the UofM Public Engagement Conference on our model of community based participatory research in rural Minnesota! Way to represent!

03/13/2025

A beautiful day for the Alzheimer's Day on the Hill supporting the Alzheimer's Association! Shout out to Dr. Lamont, Kirsten and Natalya for speaking with legislators about memory loss and caregiving!

11/21/2024

Happy National Rural Health Day! We wanted to take a moment to thank our Advisory Group Members, our Partners, those who have supported our research, those who've shared their stories, and our research team who've come together in a collective effort to highlight rural voices in aging and memory loss research!

09/17/2024

We'd like to take a moment for a Team Highlight!

Dr. Shawn McMahon- Rural Advisory
Shawn McMahon is a family physician with over 30 years of serving rural community health needs. His practice included ambulatory care, hospital-based care, and long-term care with special interest in long term care and prehospital/emergency medicine.

Shawn collaborates with the Memory Keepers research team, providing guidance and medical knowledge to support the research on dementia and Alzheimer’s-related diseases.

CERDAR's Spring Newsletter is out now! Please view it here for more team highlights and research updates!
https://memorykeepersmdt.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/CERDAR-Newsletter-Issue-5.pdf

09/09/2024

Memory Keepers represented at the Twin Ports Walk to End Alzheimer's! We were happy to share our stories, and see the support and impact of our great partners at the Alzheimer's Association as they continue to support research, provide resources, and build awareness around Alzheimer's and related dementias.

We'll be joining the Range Walk to End Alzheimer's on Sep 29th! Red Lake on the 21st, and Grand Rapids on the 22nd! Join us at any of those walks as well!

09/03/2024

We'd like to take a moment for a Team Member Highlight!

Jody Peterson- Community Advisory Group Member

Jody has lived in the small community of Lancaster, MN, all her life. She has been married to her husband for over 51 years with 5 children, 17 grandchildren, and 1 great-grandchild! Jody had a busy daycare in her home for about 35 years, retired, and soon was a full-time caregiver for her husband, who was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease.

Jody is a fan for all the sports and rarely misses a game. She directed the senior high school plays for the drama department for 25 years, and is active in her church and American Legion Auxiliary. She enjoys reading and studying all types of things. Her passion now is learning all she can about the types of dementia and helping others find joy as they go through their journey.

CERDAR's Spring Newsletter is out now! Please view it here for more team highlights and research updates!
https://memorykeepersmdt.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/CERDAR-Newsletter-Issue-5.pdf

08/20/2024

We'd like to take a moment for a Team Member Highlight!

Dr. Abigail Johnson- Affiliated Faculty- Assistant Professor, Division of Epidemiology & Community Health

Dr. Johnson was awarded the C. Faster Diabetes, Memory, and Aging Scholar award. She is collaborating with CERDAR’s research team exploring the relationship between between diet and the human gut microbiome. The microbiome is the communities of bacteria, fungi, and other microorganisms that live within our bodies that are thought to affect health and disease.

Dr. Johnson uses computational approaches to understand how diet can shape and change these communities. Dr. Johnson’s research focuses on understanding how diet and microbiome impact prediabetes, diabetes, and cancer.

CERDAR's Spring Newsletter is out now! Please view it here for more team highlights and research updates!
https://memorykeepersmdt.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/CERDAR-Newsletter-Issue-5.pdf

08/13/2024

An Introduction to our Life Space Project!

~Optimization of a Life-Space Performance Metric for Monitoring and Early Detection of Dementia in Rural and Indigenous Communities~

The aim of this research project is to understand how people living and aging in rural and Indigenous communities use their environment, or life-space, and how this impacts care for people living with dementia. The term life-space has been used to describe the physical and social environment of where a person lives and does day to day activities. Life-space has been shown to be related to cognitive health, and by measuring life-space, we can measure cognitive decline.

Traditionally, life-space has been measured using the gold-standard daily Life-Space Questionnaire (LSQ) and monthly Life-Space Assessment (LSA). These measures have been shown to have a strong predictive validity and clinical utility specific to aging and cognitive decline (Poranen-Clark et al., 2018). However, life-space research has been overwhelmingly urban in focus, with little to no attention paid to the nature of rural life-space and its relation to aging or cognitive decline. Likewise, the LSQ and LSA are also urban in orientation. Therefore, we are conducting a one-month pilot study using a modified rural version of the daily LSQ and monthly LSA with 10 rural and 10 Indigenous adults who provide care for a family member or loved one with dementia.

Data from this project will be used to obtain a life-space metric that can ultimately monitor and detect Alzheimer’s disease and related dementias in rural and Indigenous communities and aid with new technology development.

Want to join this study?
Sign up at ruralmemory.com

Read other project updates and team highlights in or Spring Newsletter!https://memorykeepersmdt.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/CERDAR-Newsletter-Issue-5.pdf

Address

624 E 1st Street
Duluth, MN
55805

Telephone

+12187266801

Website

https://memorykeepersmdt.com/cerdar/

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