Puzzles To Remember: October 2014

Puzzles To Remember

PUZZLES TO REMEMBER is a youth led 501(c)(3) nonprofit dedicated to enhancing the lives of individuals living with Alzheimer’s disease and other dementias through jigsaw puzzles, cognitive engagement, and social connection. Led by Executive Director Hailey Richman, Puzzles To Remember has distributed more than 236,000 puzzles valued at over $2 million to more than 5,000 memory care communities, nursing homes, veterans facilities, senior centers, and other organizations across all 50 states and 16 countries. Our programs have benefited more than one million people while diverting approximately 148 tons of puzzles from landfills through donation and reuse. Puzzles To Remember also promotes intergenerational connection through Puzzle Time, which brings young people together with individuals living with dementia for shared puzzle solving, conversation, and companionship. Our mission is to provide engaging and purposeful activities that promote connection, participation, and joy while enhancing the quality of life of those affected by dementia. Donate Puzzles If you have puzzles you would like to donate, please contact us at Puzzles2Remember@gmail.com. We will help identify a location where your puzzles can benefit individuals living with Alzheimer’s disease and other dementias. Donation acknowledgment letters are available upon request.

Tuesday, October 28, 2014

36,400 Puzzles Have Been Donated

By Max Wallack
Puzzles to Remember

This week, puzzles were supplied to ten additional nursing facilities.

The locations stretched from Long Beach, California, to London, England.

I hope the residents of these nursing facilities will derive feelings of calm and pleasure from working on these jigsaw puzzles.
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Max Wallack is a student at Boston University and a Research Intern in the Molecular Psychiatry and Aging Laboratory in the Department of Pharmacology and Experimental Therapeutics at Boston University School of Medicine. His great grandmother, Gertrude, suffered from Alzheimer's disease. Max is the founder of PUZZLES TO REMEMBER. PTR is a project that provides puzzles to nursing homes and veterans institutions that care for Alzheimer's and dementia patients.

The Cure Alzheimer’s Fund 2014 Symposium

By Max Wallack
Puzzles to Remember

This week, I had the privilege to attend the Cure Alzheimer’s Fund Symposium “10 Years of Leading Research.” It was a wonderful, celebratory event. Dr. Tanzi presented on his team’s discovery of learning how to grow neurons in a gel-like substance and introduce Alzheimer’s mutations to simulate the disease as it occurs in the human brain. This will allow for much cheaper and quicker testing of various drugs to see how effective they are against Alzheimer’s. This is not Dr. Tanzi’s first huge accomplishment regarding Alzheimer’s disease. He has previously identified several genes as promising drug targets for Alzheimer’s.

Here is a link to a video of the entire Cure Alzheimer’s Fund presentation, including Dr. Tanzi’s talk:

http://curealz.org/events/2014/05/2014-fall-symposium-10-years-leading-research