Dementia

...ba href=/dementia/a/b-prone men, Hetty Ra played with her pens.

“This is the Pen Olympics,” the Bronx Science student, 17, said as she lounged with her fellow classmates on the second-floor staircase of the New York Academy of Sciences.

“There’s a lot of physics involved,” Ra said, suspending a blue ballpoint pen above her friend’s outstretched hand.

She dropped the pen and it fell through her friend’s fingers before he could catch it.

“You see, it has a magnitude of 9.8 meters per second, squared,” Ra said matter-of-factly.

Duh.

The city’s sharpest pre-collegiate minds descended on the Upper East Side today from area high schools for the Junior Science and Humanities Symposia, which is second only to the Intel Science Talent Search in the hierarchy of science fairs.

Sponsored by the U.S.

Army, Navy and Air Force, the annual event is the culmination of nearly two years of diligent research conducted at local hospitals and universities with scientists and doctors in the fields of engineering, medicine, behavioral sciences and mathematics.

Today’s winners will go on to the next round of competition in Albuquerque, N.

M., next month.

Standing nervously before a small panel of established scientists, each baby Einstein delivered a whirlwind 10-minute audiovisual presentation chock full of scientific jargon – calmodulin, immunchistochemistry, Anganglionic extrinsic innervation – that rolled off the tongue.

Mor...

...ba href=/dementia/a/b, he was unable to explain to the nurses why he was so terrified of taking a shower.

His family had to explain to them that he was a Holocaust survivor and associated showers with gassing.

For a Korean patient, Greenberger said, getting a glass of iced water can be deeply distressing, because of a belief that water should be heated.

“Just the act of bringing a glass of warm water instead can make all the difference.” Debbie Rosenwein, the federation’s director of planning and allocations, praised Greenberger for easing the way for Jewish services.

“Sidney literally asked us for our wish list for this program,” she said.

“We gave him an extensive list based on the needs of the local Jewish population.

Everything was implemented, and the program is comprehensive and wonderful.

It is our pleasure to be involved, and we plan on assisting by providing continuous volunteer support.” On March 22, guests were escorted around the home, and shown rooms in the renovated subacute care unit, with their mahogany-toned woodwork and stylish light fixtures more typical of a quality hotel than a health-care facility, and on to the less luxurious but still perfectly pleasant rooms — soon to be renovated — in the long-term care unit.

They were also shown the physical therapy room and the elegantly appointed, fully equipped mini-apartment, where patients learning to cope with altered capability — for instance after a debilitating stroke ...

...ba href=/dementia/a/b, wandered out of his family's house.

Fortunately, he was found several hours later by YoloBus driver Chrissie Roa at 8:30 a.m.

Rangel wandered from his home sometime around 4:30 a.m., got onto YoloBus No.

215 and was about to get off when Roa noticed that he looked lost.

Roa then reported Rangel to the Woodland Police Department.

Equally fortunate, he was registered with police, the Yolo County Sheriff's Department and California Highway Patrol as part of a program that started last October called "Elder ID." According to Peggy Phelps, caregiver resource specialist for Yolo Adult Day Health Center, Monday's incident was the first time a senior, registered with Elder ID, wandered from their home or away from their families.

In conjunction with all Woodland and Yolo County law enforcement agencies, the Elder ID program is offered by the Alzheimer's Aid Society.

The Alzheimer's Aid Society obtains a photograph and vital information on each ba href=/dementia/a/b participant.

All information is kept confidential on file at the Police Department, the Alzheimer's Aid Society and the Woodland Senior Multipurpose Center.

If the participant becomes lost in the community, or is found by the police, Elder ID will expedite a safe return home.

Phelps explained that "a few hundred" people may be wanderers in Yolo County, but only about 55 people are registered in the program thus far.

"You never know when it's going to click in that (the seniors with ba href=/dementia/a/b) are going to get lost, but if...