NORTHWEST
Wednesday, July 26, 2017
East Oregonian
Page 7A
Seniors stroll down memory lane, aiming to stay sharp
By LAURAN NEERGAARD
AP Medical Writer
PORTLAND — Sharon Steen
dons her tennis shoes and, with two
fellow seniors, walks streets that in
her youth were a vibrant center of
Portland, Oregon’s African-Amer-
ican community. Wasn’t this the
corner where an NAACP march
began in 1963? Look, the record
store is now a fancy high-rise.
It’s more than a stroll down
memory lane. Steen enrolled in
a small but unique study to see if
jogging memories where they were
made can help older African-Amer-
icans stay mentally sharp and slow
early memory loss.
“What we find when we walk, all
of us, is that there are a lot of things
we haven’t had to remember, and
that we can’t remember. And then
as we walk and talk, the memories
pop up and it’s reassuring that
they’re still there,” Steen said.
It’s part of a new and growing
effort to unravel troubling dispari-
ties: Why do black seniors appear
twice as likely as whites — and
Hispanics 1½ times — to develop
Alzheimer’s and other dementias?
A crucial first step is motivating
more underrepresented populations
to volunteer for research. Afri-
can-Americans make up less than
5 percent of participants in studies
of cognitive decline and dementia,
according to the Alzheimer’s Asso-
ciation.
Beyond possibly improving
their own brain health, the Portland
study’s enticement is a chance
to help preserve community and
cultural memories from historically
AP Photos/Gillian Flaccus
In this July 6 photo, from left, Ron Young, Gahlena Easterly and
Sharon Steen reminisce as they take a mile-long walk through
North Portland streets that once were full of black-owned homes
and businesses.
black neighborhoods that are disap-
pearing with gentrification.
“A lot of our wisdom and
stories about what community
means comes from our elders,”
said Raina Croff, an assistant
neurology professor at Oregon
Health & Science University. She
leads the SHARP study — it stands
for Sharing History through Active
Reminiscence and Photo-Imagery.
Three times a week, 21 seniors
gather in groups of three and
reminisce during mile-long walks
through streets once filled with
black-owned homes and businesses,
areas that in the last 20 years have
become majority white. Along the
way, “memory markers” — signs
or historic photos — prompt “do
you remember” conversations
about people, events or long-gone
landmarks, conversations recorded
both for the study and for an oral
archive.
Walking is healthy, and being
social increasingly is thought
critical for seniors’ brain health.
Adding reminiscence is novel,
although some previous research
found simply looking through old
family photos sometimes sparks
memories in dementia patients.
Some of the SHARP study partic-
ipants, like Steen, are cognitively
normal for their age; others have
early memory problems or what’s
called mild cognitive impairment.
Tests of brain function before and
after the six-month program will
show if it makes a difference.
It’s an innovative way to test
what’s
essentially
exercising
memory “when you still have a lot
of brain left,” said Maria Carrillo,
chief science officer at the Alzhei-
mer’s Association, which is funding
the SHARP study.
Croff’s theory: “There’s some-
thing different that happens as you
walk through the space and talk
about memories.”
It’s not clear why African-Amer-
icans face extra risk of dementia.
Higher rates of chronic health
conditions such as high blood pres-
sure and diabetes, known to be toxic
to the brain, don’t fully explain the
disparity.
Studies presented at the Alzhei-
mer’s Association International
Conference last week show a
growing interest in the role of social
and environmental influences, from
living in disadvantaged neighbor-
hoods to socioeconomic disparities
in early childhood.
One particularly striking study
suggests highly stressful experi-
ences — the death of a child, abuse
or severe illness, being fired or
divorced — can age the brain before
its time. University of Wiscon-
sin-Madison researchers tested
cognitive functions that decline
with age in still healthy volunteers
in their 50s and 60s. Each particu-
larly traumatic event over a lifetime
added the equivalent of 1½ years of
age-related decline — even more,
four years, for African-Americans,
who experienced disproportionately
more stressors.
The National Institute on Aging
recently awarded $39 million in
new grants to better explore racial
disparities in Alzheimer’s, and
one focus is on social and cultural
factors, including stress.
“There’s so much for us to learn
in terms of how cultural factors link
to behavior, how upstream factors
like residential segregation could
shape culture” that in turn influ-
ences biological changes, said Dr.
Carl Hill, who directs NIA’s Office
of Special Populations.
He is closely watching the Port-
land SHARP study to see if through
a culture of storytelling, Croff has
found a way to engage a hard-to-
study community.
Croff deliberately chose “cultur-
ally celebratory” historical photos.
During one recent walk, the seniors
were thrilled to recognize some
faces in a photo of a 1961 debutante
ball. In photos of that 1963 NAACP
march, participants have recognized
pastors and switched the conversa-
tion to the vitality of church life.
Croff, an anthropologist by
training, said some participants see
the study as social activism.
“There is something very
powerful about saying, ‘I’m still
here, I’m still part of this commu-
nity and you’re going to see me.”
The walks can spark some
melancholy, too, said Edna White,
70, who participated in a pilot
SHARP study and signed up again.
“There was just so much hustle-
bustle and activity and bright lights,
and now there are just old buildings.
All those places are gone,” she said.
“Except for in our memory, it’s like
it never happened.”
BRIEFLY
Cash assistance
cases still above
pre-recession levels
SALEM — The number
of Oregonians receiving
federal cash assistance
remains higher than it was
at the start of the Great
Recession, but state analysts
expect the number to shrink
to pre-recession levels by
early 2019.
The number of people
receiving Temporary Assis-
tance for Needy Families,
or TANF, the federal cash
assistance program for people
experiencing poverty, to an
extent reflects the state’s
uneven economic recovery.
As of June 2017, there
were 18,624 TANF cases
in Oregon, translating to
45,978 people, according
to the Oregon Department
of Human Services.
Caseloads have dropped off
significantly from their peak
in early 2013.
The TANF program is
“highly sensitive to the job
market,” according to a
recent DHS report.
The report looked at
caseloads for the program
between January of 2008 and
December 2016 in each of
Oregon’s 36 counties.
Families who earn less
than 37 percent of the federal
poverty level are eligible for
TANF. That’s about $630 per
month for a family of three,
according to DHS.
While overall the state
is experiencing a tight labor
market, employment rates
haven’t recovered uniformly
across the state — and
neither have caseloads for
social welfare programs like
TANF and food stamps.
Multnomah County, for
example, which has seen
both rapid growth in employ-
ment and in in-migration,
in December of 2016 had
TANF caseloads that are
actually 2 percent lower than
they were in January of 2008.
— Capital Bureau
Court nixes rifle
target maker’s
defamation suit
against NBC
NEW YORK (AP) — A
rifle target maker missed
its mark when it said
in a lawsuit that NBC
mischaracterized its
exploding targets as bombs,
a federal appeals court ruled
Tuesday.
The 2nd U.S. Circuit
Court of Appeals said
an NBC “Today” show
segment’s description of
the product as a “bomb”
was substantially true.
The ruling rejected a 2015
lawsuit Tannerite Sports
LLC brought against
NBCUniversal News Group.
In the defamation lawsuit,
which sought unspecified
damages, Tannerite said
the March 2015 report
mischaracterized its targets
as bombs on a shelf. The
court said NBC made clear
the targets’ ingredients must
be mixed and shot before
they explode. The court
also criticized Tannerite’s
complaint that NBC
associated its product with
terrorists.
A spokesman did not
immediately return a call to
the company’s Pleasant Hill,
Oregon, headquarters.
Lawyer David Cargille,
who argued the case but
no longer represents the
company, said the claims
should have been allowed to
go to a jury. He said it was
“wrong for the courtroom
door to be closed by one
judge.”
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