Memory Cafes Help Dementia Patients and Their Caregivers
Rob Kennedy mingled with about a dozen other people in a community space in Clarks Summit, Pennsylvania.
The room, decorated with an under-the-sea theme, had a balloon arch decked out with streamers meant to look like jellyfish and a cloud of clear balloons mimicking ocean bubbles.
Kennedy comes to this memory cafe twice a month since being diagnosed with early onset Alzheimer's disease in his late 50s.
Everyone here has a degree of memory loss or is a caregiver for someone with memory loss.
Attendees colored on worksheets with an underwater theme. They drank coffee and returned to the breakfast bar for seconds on pastries.
A quick round of trivia got everyone's minds working.
'We start out with just little trivia — many of us cannot answer any of the questions,' Kennedy said with a laugh.
'We all have a good time going around,' he added. 'You know, we all try to make it fun.'
The northeastern Pennsylvania memory cafe Kennedy attends is one of more than 600 around the country, according to Dementia Friendly America. The gatherings for people with cognitive impairment and their caregivers are relatively cheap and easy to run — often the only expense is a small rental fee for the space.
As state and local health departments nationwide try to make sense of what the potential loss of $11 billion of federal health funding will mean for the services they can offer their communities, memory cafe organizers believe their work may become even more important.
Losing Memory, and Other Things, Too
Kennedy's diagnosis led him to retire, ending a decades-long career as a software engineer at the University of Scranton.
He recommends memory cafes to other people with dementia and their families.
'If they're not coming to a place like this, they're doing themselves a disservice. You got to get out there and see people that are laughing.'
The memory cafes he attends happen twice a month. They have given him purpose, Kennedy said, and help him cope with negative emotions around his diagnosis.
'I came in and I was miserable,' Kennedy said. 'I come in now and it's like, it's family, it's a big, extended family. I get to meet them. I get to meet their partners. I get to meet their children. So, it's really nice.'
More than 6 million people in the US have been diagnosed with some form of dementia. The diagnosis can be burdensome on relationships, particularly with family members who are the primary caregivers.
A new report from the Alzheimer's Association found that 70% of caregivers reported that coordinating care is stressful. Socializing can also become more difficult after diagnosis.
'One thing I have heard again and again from people who come to our memory cafe is 'all of our friends disappeared,'' said Beth Soltzberg, a social worker at Jewish Family and Children's Service of Greater Boston, where she directs the Alzheimer's and related dementia family support program.
The inclusion of caregivers is what distinguishes memory cafes from other programs that serve people with cognitive impairment, like adult day care. Memory cafes don't offer formal therapies. At a memory cafe, having fun together and being social supports the well-being of participants. And that support is for the patient and their caregiver — because both can experience social isolation and distress after a diagnosis.
A 2021 study published in Frontiers in Public Health indicated that even online memory cafes during the pandemic provided social support for both patients and their family members.
'A memory cafe is a cafe which recognizes that some of the clients here may have cognitive impairment, some may not,' said Jason Karlawish, a geriatrics professor at the University of Pennsylvania's Perelman School of Medicine and the co-director of the Penn Memory Center.
Karlawish regularly recommends memory cafes to his patients, in part because they benefit caregivers as well.
'The caregiver-patient dyad, I find often, has achieved some degree of connection and enjoyment in doing things together,' Karlawish said. 'For many, that's a very gratifying experience, because dementia does reshape relationships.'
'That socialization really does help ease the stress that they feel from being a caregiver,' said Kyra O'Brien, a neurologist who also teaches at Penn's Perelman School of Medicine. 'We know that patients have better quality of life when their caregivers are under less stress.'
An Affordable Way to Address a Growing Problem
As the population grows older, the number of available family caregivers is decreasing, according to the AARP Public Policy Institute. The report found that the number of potential caregivers for an individual 80 or older will decrease significantly by 2050.
In 2024, the Alzheimer's Association issued a report projecting a jump in dementia cases in the US from an estimated 6.9 million people aged 65 years or older currently living with Alzheimer's disease to 13.8 million people by 2060. It attributed this increase primarily to the aging of the baby boom generation, or those born between 1946 and 1964.
As cases of memory loss are projected to rise, the Trump administration is attempting to cut billions in health spending. Since memory cafes don't rely on federal dollars, they may become an even more important part of the continuum of care for people with memory loss and their loved ones.
'We're fighting off some pretty significant Medicaid cuts at the congressional level,' said Georgia Goodman, director of Medicaid policy for LeadingAge, a national nonprofit network of services for people as they age. 'Medicaid is a program that doesn't necessarily pay for memory cafes, but thinking about ensuring that the long-term care continuum and the funding mechanisms that support it are robust and remain available for folks is going to be key.'
The nonprofit MemoryLane Care Services operates two memory cafes in Toledo, Ohio. They're virtually free to operate because they take place in venues that don't require payment, according to Salli Bollin, the executive director.
'That really helps from a cost standpoint, from a funding standpoint,' Bollin said.
One of the memory cafes takes place once a month at a local coffee shop. The other meets at the Toledo Museum of Art. MemoryLane Care Services provides the museum employees with training in dementia sensitivity so they can lead tours for the memory cafe participants.
The memory cafe that Rob Kennedy attends in Pennsylvania costs about $150 a month to run, according to the host organization, The Gathering Place.
'This is a labor of love,' said board member Paula Baillie, referring to the volunteers who run the memory cafe. 'The fact that they're giving up time — they recognize that this is important.'
The monthly budget goes toward crafts, books, coffee, snacks, and some utilities for the 2-hour meetings. Local foundations provide grants that help cover those costs.
Even though memory cafes are inexpensive and not dependent on federal funding, they could face indirect obstacles because of the Trump administration's recent funding cuts.
Organizers worry the loss of federal funds could negatively affect the host institutions, such as libraries and other community spaces.
Memory Cafe Hot Spot: Wisconsin
At least 39 states have hosted memory cafes recently, according to Dementia Friendly America. Wisconsin has the most — more than 100.
The state has a strong infrastructure focused on memory care, which should keep its memory cafes running regardless of what is happening at the federal level, according to Susan McFadden, a professor emerita of psychology at the University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh. She co-founded the Fox Valley Memory Project, which oversees 14 memory cafes.
'They've operated on the grassroots, they've operated on pretty small budgets and a lot of goodwill,' she said.
Since 2013, Wisconsin has also had a unique network for dementia care, with state-funded dementia care specialists for each county and federally recognized tribe in Wisconsin. The specialists help connect individuals with cognitive impairment to community resources, bolstering memory cafe attendance.
McFadden first heard about memory cafes in 2011, before they were popular in the US. She was conducting research on memory and teaching courses on aging.
McFadden reached out to memory cafes in the UK, where the model was already popular and well connected. Memory cafe organizers invited her to visit and observe them in person, so she planned a trip overseas with her husband.
Their tour skipped over the typical tourist hot spots, taking them to more humble settings.
'We saw church basements and senior center dining rooms and assisted living dining rooms,' she said. 'That, to me, is really the core of memory cafes. It's hospitality. It's reaching out to people you don't know and welcoming them, and that's what they did for us.'
After her trip, McFadden started applying for grants and scouting locations that could host memory cafes in Wisconsin.
She opened her first one in Appleton, Wisconsin, in 2012, just over a year after her transformative trip to the UK.
These days, she points interested people to a national directory of memory cafes hosted by Dementia Friendly America. The organization's Memory Cafe Alliance also offers training modules — developed by McFadden and her colleague Anne Basting — to help people establish cafes in their own communities, wherever they are.
'They're not so hard to set up; they're not expensive,' McFadden said. 'It doesn't require an act of the legislature to do a memory cafe. It takes community engagement.'
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Before there was MAHA, there was Michelle. Anyone following the rise of Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s Make America Healthy Again movement can't help but recall former First Lady Michelle Obama's efforts to improve Americans' diets — and the vitriol she faced in response. Now, many of the same Republicans who skewered Michelle Obama as a 'nanny state' warrior have embraced the MAHA movement. To explore this head-spinning turn, I called up Sam Kass, the former White House chef under President Barack Obama and a food policy adviser who led the first lady's 'Let's Move' initiative. Kass said he was happy to find common ground with Kennedy and his MAHA brigade where possible. But he argued Kennedy's HHS has done little to actually improve the health of the public so far, and was instead mostly taking steps that would do real damage, including by undermining the use of vaccines. 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How do you square the earlier conservative criticism of the 'Let's Move' initiative with the rise of MAHA? Are you surprised by the seeming contradiction? I think most of that is because Republicans are fearful of President Trump. And therefore, if he is putting somebody in a position of great power and backing him, there's a huge part of the party that's going to go along with whatever that may be. I don't think this is actually about the Republican Party taking this up. This is actually about a Democrat, traditionally, who had built up a pretty strong following on these issues, and decided to join forces with President Trump. It's not like any of these ideas are coming from the GOP platform. This is an RFK-led effort that they're now supporting. So are they hypocrites for that? Certainly. But I welcome Republican support on trying to genuinely improve the health of the nation. Frankly, if we had had that for the last 20 years, I think that cultural retention would be far better. 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I could not fathom making an announcement like that without actually having a real policy to put in place. I didn't know whether to laugh or cry about what they did. Also, you see a bunch of the influencers holding up bags of Fruit Loops and saying, 'In Europe or Canada, these have no [synthetic] food dyes and ours do.' But the fact of the matter is Fruit Loops aren't good for you either way. Part of the danger of RFK is he keeps talking about gold standard science and rebooting our public policy and science. The reality is he's doing the exact opposite. He's going to fast food restaurants, touting them on national television as the head of Health and Human Services, [saying that] a cheeseburger and french fries is good for you now because it's cooked in beef fat which is just the most insane thing on literally every single level. It has absolutely no basis in science. We're focusing on issues that are absolutely not going to make an iota of difference in public health. It's absolutely shocking. They have a platform that is fear-based on certain issues, like these food dyes or seed oils, which are absolutely not addressing the core of what we're eating and the core of what's really harming our health. The problem is the fries and the cheeseburger. It's not the oil that it's fried in. It's actually quite scary to me to see what's playing out. Why do you think the politics of food have changed in the years since you were in the White House, and why do you think MAHA ideas have such appeal? I don't exactly know for sure. In the age of social media, the thing that gets the algorithms the most activity is more extreme views. I think people are very vulnerable to very compelling, very scientifically sounding narratives that [MAHA influencers] all have, based on one study here or another study there, that can weave a narrative of fear. It's not like food dyes are good, I'm happy to see them go. But you get people scared of what they're eating to the point where people stop eating vegetables because they're worried about the pesticides, which is just not good for their health. This fear is definitely taking hold. I think it's because the mediums on which this information travels are exacerbating that fear. You already mentioned the food dye announcement and why that was concerning to you. What are some of the other actions that you think aren't necessarily achieving the stated goals? If you step back and start to look at what actions have actually been taken, what you're actually seeing is a full-on assault on science throughout HHS. You're seeing a complete gutting of NIH, which funds much of the research needed to understand what in hyper-processed foods is undermining people's health and how to actually identify those correlations so you can regulate it very aggressively. You're seeing the complete gutting or elimination of departments within CDC and FDA that oversee the safety of our food. Food toxicologists have been fired. There's a department in CDC that's in charge of assessing chronic health and environmental exposures to toxins. Those offices have been eliminated. The idea that somehow you're going to be more aggressively regulating based on the best science, while you're absolutely wholesale cutting scientific research and gutting the people who are in charge of overseeing the very industry that you're trying to clamp down on is a joke. Then look at the 'big, beautiful bill' that is being supported by this administration, and it's catastrophic to the public health of the United States of America. Eight million people are going to lose access to health care. Three million plus are going to lose SNAP assistance. Then we can get into USDA and EPA. Everybody's got to remember that the number one threat to the public health of the United States of America is climate change. If we continue on this path of pulling back every regulatory effort that's been made to try to transition our society to a much more sustainable, lower-carbon world, that's also preparing itself to deal with the volatility that's coming from the climate, we're not going to have food to eat. This idea that you're going to have big announcements about food dyes and Fruit Loops, while you completely roll back every effort to prepare our agricultural system and our food system to deal with climate change, you're gaslighting the American public. Have you spoken to the former first lady about MAHA at all? Not in any kind of depth. Have you ever been in touch with Kennedy? Have you ever talked to him about these issues? He's very close to a number of people I'm good friends with, but no, I have not. You noted Kennedy used to be a Democrat. His issues — his opposition to pesticides, his support for healthy nutrition, with all the caveats that we just discussed — these were Democratic issues. Now, this MAHA coalition helped Trump win the White House. Why do you think Democrats have ceded this terrain? The Democratic Party has absolutely blundered this issue. These are kitchen table issues. Our very well-being, our ability to eat food that's not harming ourselves and our kids, is fundamental to life on planet Earth and what it means to have a vibrant society. The fact that Democrats, much to my chagrin, definitely not because of lack of trying, have not taken this issue up with great effort over the last 15 years is shameful. We're getting what we deserve here in some ways. I'm deeply critical of Democrats, with some exceptions. Sen. Cory Booker has been amazing on these issues. [Former Sen.] Jon Tester is also great. But it was never part of the platform, and it absolutely always should have been. If there's some common ground to be found with Republicans, then great. We could get a lot done. But we can't just turn over the keys to this issue to people who are not serious. When you worked in the Obama White House, you pushed better nutrition labeling, active living, bans on unhealthy foods in school meals and trans fat. The recent MAHA report pointed the finger at similar programs for chronic illness. Is that a place where you and MAHA advocates are on the same page, and how do you balance that with the concerns you've raised? There's no clean answer to that. We largely, not entirely, share the same critique when it comes to food. Vaccines are another thing which are important to also talk about. People are trying to pick the issue that they like and can get around and pretend like the rest isn't happening. It would be great if we got food dyes out, but it would pale in comparison to if he continues down the path to undermine vaccines as the foundation of public health and people start dying, like they are, with measles. That is not even close to a trade. For all of my food friends who read this, or everybody in policy who are like, 'Oh yeah, I can work with him on this issue, but I'm going to turn a blind eye to that,' that doesn't work. That's going to lead to devastating outcomes. On the report, I share the general critique of the problem. I spent my life saying those things and working on these issues. That's the easy part. What matters is what you do about it. How do you actually change what people are eating, and what is it going to take to really put the country on a different trajectory when it comes to health? So far, I've seen absolutely no indication that the issues that they're focused on are going to have any meaningful or measurable impact on public health. Frankly, there's many other things that I think are going to be extremely detrimental. We will see. We're only a few months in. I could, depending on what happens, have a different perspective in six months or 12 months. RFK has blamed the food industry for Americans' poor health. He's argued that government institutions are overwrought with corporate influence. Do you think he's right? And what do you think about RFK's approach to trying to curb corporate influence? I'm all for curbing corporate influence. I had some big fights with industry. I won some of them, and sometimes I got my ass kicked. It's the nature of Washington when you're threatening the basic interests of an industry. What's stunning to me is that the food industry so far has been silent. They haven't done anything to fight back, which says to me that they're not feeling threatened yet. I think they're waiting to see what's going to happen. I'm sure they're doing some stuff in the background, but this is nothing like what we were dealing with. I agree that we should put the public's best interest first, not succumb to industry influence. I think the way that RFK talks about it is a real overstatement down a very dark conspiracy theory. The idea that JAMA and the American Medical Association and the New England Journal are just like corporate journals that just put corporate, completely distorted research out for the sake of making profits, it's just not serious. He starts to discredit the very institutions, like HHS, that you actually need to do the work to rein in industry. The way that industry does make inroads is that they fund a lot of research. If you want to reduce industry influence, you should dramatically increase [government] investment in funding of scientific research on agriculture and climate change, on food and nutrition. One of the biggest fights in the Obama era was over stricter nutrition standards for school lunches. The administration won some of those battles, but quite a few children still have obesity, according to the latest data. Is there anything you wish the Obama administration had done differently? Are there things policymakers should be doing differently? School nutrition is just one part of a young person's diet. You're not going to solve kids' health issues just through school nutrition, but obviously it's a huge lever to pull. If we really want to make progress, you have to look much more holistically at the food environment that people are living in. This is generational work. It's going to take literally decades of work to shift, not just the policies, but our culture, our businesses, to change how people are eating. I think the one thing we missed would have been a much stricter restriction on sugar across the board. We had it for drinks,, but we didn't [apply it across the board], and that was a miss. We should have pushed harder on sugar. I think the policy was a really important start. It can always be improved and strengthened. Both the first Trump administration and this one are looking to roll back some of that. The thing that we have to not forget — and this is true for schools, and certainly true for SNAP and WIC — is the biggest problem is not enough money for these programs. I started doing a lot of work on finding ways to restrict sugary drinks as an example from the SNAP program. But if you want to do that and actually get the health outcomes you need, you need to also increase the total dollar amount that people have so they can purchase healthier food. Part of the reason why people are drinking these things is they're the cheapest available drink. Coke is cheaper than water sometimes. RFK recently called sugar 'poison.' Do you agree with that? One of their tactics to obfuscate truth in science is dosage, right? The amount that we're consuming matters. If you had a birthday cake on your birthday and you have a cookie — my kids eat a cookie, they're not dying, they're not being poisoned to death. They're fine. I think the problem is the amount of sugar we're consuming and the sizes of the portions we have. It's the cumulative amount of sugar. It's probably technically not exactly the right word, poison. But I don't take issue with that. I think the levels of sugar consumption for young people are deeply alarming and are absolutely going to drive preventable death and disease for millions and millions of people. It already is and will continue to do so. It is a very serious problem. But what do you do? I can't wait to see the policy proposals here. It's a tough problem to solve. It is not a problem that can be solved overnight, and it's going to take a very comprehensive effort to really shift the amount of sugar we're consuming, but it should be the goal of this administration. They should work very hard at it in a very serious and science-based way. Thus far, I have not seen that.
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According to a study published in the Journal of Neuroscience, a single night of sleep deprivation can age your brain. A lot goes on in the brain while we sleep, including clearing out toxins and creating new neural pathways. If you don't get enough sleep, your brain doesn't have time to carry out these functions and cognition suffers. Establishing a bedtime routine can have a big impact on your sleep quality. From reading a book to practicing yoga before bed, integrating relaxation into your night can help boost your sleep. 4) Focus on your nutrition What you eat also will influence the rate of cognitive decline you experience as you age. Studies have found that people who follow the Mediterranean and MIND (Mediterranean Dash Intervention for Neurodegenerative Delay) diets tend to have fewer cognitive impairments and dementias compared to those following other diets. More research is needed to conclude why this is true. However, it might have something to do with the way those diets prioritize foods that protect the brain with anti-inflammatory and antioxidant properties. Read more: Master the Mediterranean Diet With the Help of These Tips and Recipes No matter if you choose to follow a strict diet or just improve your current meal rotation, you'll want to focus on improving your blood sugar and dropping high levels of LDL cholesterol to reduce your risk of dementia. Foods to incorporate into your diet for better brain health: Leafy greens like spinach, kale and lettuce Salmon Dark berries Nuts Greek yogurt Dark chocolate Green tea Vegetables like broccoli and carrots 5) Exercise Studies have found that following an active lifestyle is associated with lower cognitive decline over time. Your heart rate increases when you exercise, which increases blood flow to the brain. This can help spark new development of nerve cells, a process called neurogenesis. Exercise also promotes increased connections between cells, making the brain more adaptive. Generally, any exercise that's good for the body will also help the mind. It doesn't have to be lifting weights; walking, swimming and dancing also achieve the same results. Read more: How Exercise Helps Boost Your Memory-Brain Health as You Age6) Make connections with others Marshall pointed out that prioritizing high-quality relationships with others can benefit the brain. According to a meta-analysis of longitudinal cohort studies, limited or poor relationships were associated with cognitive decline. Prioritizing social contact is an essential part of aging well. Whether spending time with your family or putting yourself out there at your local community center, staying connected is an integral part of aging gracefully. Too long; didn't read? Our brains change as we age; there is no way around it. However, integrating any of these easy habits into your routine can help nourish and safeguard your brain for the future. There are also a few things you should avoid to keep your brain in top shape. Heavy cigarette smoking has been associated with cognitive decline in middle age. Marshall added that heavy drinking, poor diet and unmanaged high blood pressure can also negatively impact the brain as we age. Don't worry; there's still time to turn it around. Even if you smoke now, quitting has the potential to return your risk of cognitive decline to a level that's comparable to those who never smoked.
