Monday, February 11, 2013

AAQI, John Hopkins University, and Dr. Lucian Stone

Nicole with Check

On January 25th, the Alzheimer’s Art Quilt Initiative awarded a $35,000 grant to The University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston for a study called ”Protective Mechanisms Against Alzheimer’s Disease.” The work will be conducted by Dr. Nicole L. Bjorklund. The award was presented by AAQI board member Kathy Kennedy-Dennis.

Dr. Bjorklund will investigate why some individuals remain cognitively intact despite the presence of abundant plaques and tangles in their brains. The amyloid beta plaques and neurofibrillary tangles are the two hallmark lesions found in the brains of people with Alzheimer’s disease.

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Dr. Bjorklund was presented with a quilt made by Kathy Kennedy-Dennis. It contains names of people who have or had Alzheimer’s or a related dementia printed on the “wrong side” of purple patches. The names were submitted by supporters of the AAQI honoring their loved ones and the 5.4 million Americans with Alzheimer’s.
“We will cherish it,” wrote Dr. Bjorklund in an email thanking the AAQI for the grant. “I have already hung it up.”

Dr. Lucian SoaneDr. Lucian Soane
On January 31st the AAQI awarded a $38,000 research grant to Johns Hopkins University for research that will be conducted by Dr. Lucian Soane.  Dr. Soane will work to identify and target molecular mechanisms of cell death in the Alzheimer’s brain.
A small Name Quilt is being stitched now for Dr. Soane.

These three grant awards (see also Texas A & M), made by the Alzheimer’s Art Quilt Initiative during the month of January, represent the most research projects funded in a single month since the AAQI became a nonprofit in 2008.

Researchers interested in obtaining funding from the Alzheimer’s Art Quilt Initiative must meet certain criteria and fill out a detailed application.  Their application is submitted to the AAQI Scientific Advisory Board for review. The Board of Directors of the Alzheimer’s Art Quilt Initiative receives their recommendations and makes the final decision on funding.
We are most grateful to the scientists who make up our Scientific Advisory Board and thank them for donating their expertise. Vetting AAQI applications is a time-consuming task which requires a thorough knowledge of the field along with a keen understanding of best research practices, budgeting, and time management evaluation. They are all very busy people and yet have made the AAQI a priority in their lives and we thank them sincerely.
DISCLOSURES



Michele Bilyeu blogs With Heart and Hands as she shares a quilting journey through her life in Salem, Oregon and Douglas, Alaska and all of her AAQI Quilting. Sharing thousands of links to Free Quilt and Quilt Block Patterns and encouraging others to join in the Liberated Quilting Challenge and make or donate small art quilts to the Alzheimer's Art Quilt Initiative (AAQI) Help us change the world, one little quilt at a time!

Thursday, February 7, 2013

AAQI: A Message from Jennifer Simms-Coffey

Hello Again

by Jennifer Rachel Simms-Coffey

 

<<I said good-bye to my beloved Nannie, my grandmother, in late November 2008. Alzheimer’s disease had ravaged her brain and taken away the grandmother I knew as a child. She was diagnosed in 2001 and steadily began to decline. Gone was the vibrant, eccentric gourmet cook, artist, and world-traveler, among other talents. She no longer helped me make cookies, sent me hand-drawn cards, or went on photo-safari in Africa. She now needed to be reminded who I was, what food she was eating, how to get dressed.

She moved in with us and I watched as my mother had to essentially care for a second child. It must have been difficult, having one child going off to college and not getting an empty nest as she had been expecting. It was challenging for all four of us (my parents, my grandmother, and I) as we all had our roles constantly redefined, changed, and renamed. I was no longer granddaughter, I was big sister. My mother was no longer a daughter; she was a mother to her mother. My father was just a visitor. Even the dog played along: he was now the cat.

Within these roles, our responsibilities and expectations also changed. We no longer ventured far from home. I would have to “baby-sit” my grandmother and make sure she didn’t try and walk down the stairs for fear of a fall. My grandmother would set the table; someone else would reset it with the proper dishes and silverware for each setting. We all learned new patience and creativity to try and keep her occupied and happy. We repeated ourselves often, as she did. The dog learned that he would have to go outside to do his business every 15 minutes because Nannie would forget she had already sent him out.

As her disease progressed, it became obvious that she was no longer safe in our home. My parents woke up in the middle of the night to find her almost outside in her nightgown in December in Michigan waiting for a friend to take her “home.” With much pain and regret, my mother made the decision to place her into an assisted living unit. Faithfully, she visited my grandmother nearly every day. For two years, my grandmother was in this facility before she went into hospice.
A few days before she was moved to hospice, she was having a particularly good day. I had taken a leave of absence from work so that I could be with my family and spend time with my grandmother, so I was sitting with her in the common room when she had a completely lucid moment, looked right at me and said, “I love you, Jennie.”

I think about this moment often. It is something I hold onto, for in all those grey, dark days where Alzheimer’s had taken over, this is sometimes a memory that shines like sunlight. It chases away all those negative thoughts and is how I like to remember Nannie in those last few weeks leading up to her death.

Nannie, Jen, picture

I miss Nannie every day and am grateful for everything she did for me throughout my life and everything she still does for me now. As I embark on a new career in social work focusing on older adults and their families, I find that she constantly in my mind. She is there as inspiration, hope, and a reminder that I want to help as many families as I can who are going through a similar experience to what we had.

I recently read an article that shared the concept of “saying hello again.” This lovely idea is that after a person is gone, instead of focusing on saying “good-bye,” you say hello again every time you see this person in you, or when you remember them. Now, every time I remember Nannie, in my school work, my practice, and my life I say hello.

I say “Hello Nannie!” whenever I see an orchid, when someone peppers their conversation with a Yiddish word, when I look at my wedding rings (they were hers), and when I see the little quilts scattered throughout my home made of fabric she painted.

The thought warms my heart every time I say hello. And in my mind I hear her return the greeting, “Hello, Pussycat.”


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Michele Bilyeu blogs With Heart and Hands as she shares a quilting journey through her life in Salem, Oregon and Douglas, Alaska and all of her AAQI Quilting. Sharing thousands of links to Free Quilt and Quilt Block Patterns and encouraging others to join in the Liberated Quilting Challenge and make or donate small art quilts to the Alzheimer's Art Quilt Initiative (AAQI) Help us change the world, one little quilt at a time!

Saturday, February 2, 2013

Alzheimer's Art Quilt Initiative Auction Time!



Yumi Tsurudo has a quilt up for bidding!

Way to go Yumi!

 Tsuruta Yumi

See all of our Liberated Challenge Group Quilts ....
....and all of Yumi's at:  

AAQI Liberated Challenge Group Quilts Page

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click here to view all of the quilts: 

AAQI February 1-10, 2013 Auction




Quilt #12418 - Autumn Reverie



Quilt #12473 - Leaves



Quilt #12474 - Zig Zag




Quilt #12538 - You Are My Sunshine 2



Quilt #12544 - In My Garden



Quilt #12547 - Twins




Quilt #12610 - Small Samples



Quilt #12611 - Twinklers



Quilt #12,696 - Goodbye Mother




Quilt #12697 - Friendly Chat

Quilt #12700 - Symphony



Quilt #12729 - My Memories Are Silver and Gold



Quilt #12731 - Coy Koi



Quilt #12733 - Hope From The Desert



Quilt #12738 - Night Swell




Quilt #12750 - Birdsong 2


Quilt #12761 - The Clematis



Quilt #12786 - City By The Lake




Quilt #12787 - Wind Swept Daisies



Quilt #12788 - Moon Flowers



Quilt #12808 - By The Sea




Quilt #12821 - Brrrrrrrrrr!



Quilt #12822 - Butterfly at Sunset



Quilt #12861 - Pansy




Quilt #12872 - Christmas Sunset in the Woods


Quilt #12884 - Tiny Treasures



Quilt #12885 - Sail Away








Michele Bilyeu blogs With Heart and Hands as she shares a quilting journey through her life in Salem, Oregon and Douglas, Alaska and all of her AAQI Quilting. Sharing thousands of links to Free Quilt and Quilt Block Patterns and encouraging others to join in the Liberated Quilting Challenge and make or donate small art quilts to the Alzheimer's Art Quilt Initiative (AAQI) Help us change the world, one little quilt at a time!