Care Partner Educational Forum

Schedule

This event was intended for the care partners of individuals with AD, their family members, as well as professionals from various fields interested in an up-to-date review of some aspects of AD research.

Planning, coordination and training provided by the Alzheimer’s Disease Initiative (ADI) providers of Miami Dade with the Alliance for Aging and the Alzheimer’s Association South East Florida Chapter. The ADI agencies are Easter Seals South Florida, First Quality Home Care and United Home Care funded by the Alliance For Aging, State of Florida Department of Elder Affairs.

Sunday, March 6, 2022

All times in US Eastern Time.

THE EVENT was PRECEDED BY THE ce-aCCREDITED PUBLIC EDUCATIONAL FORUM FROM 1:30PM et THROUGH 3:30pm et. 

Registration was free.

Miami-Dade Area Health Education Center (AHEC), Inc. is an approved continuing education credit provider (CE Broker Provider # 50-1349) through the Florida Board of Nursing (RN, APRN, LPN) and Florida Board of Clinical Social Work, Marriage and Family Therapy and Mental Health Counseling (LCSW, LMFT, LMHC) and the Florida Board of Psychology (PY).

This event has been approved for a maximum of 2.0 CEUs for RN, APRN & LPN, 2.0 CEUs for LCSW, LMFT and LMHC & 2.0 CEUs for PY.

Credit earnings are commensurate with course participation. Participants will only earn CEUs for a successfully completed course.
CE Broker Course Tracking# 20-902789

PANELISTS

Marina Bravo, MSW, LCSW, is a licensed clinical practitioner, an experienced educator and consultant based in Miami, FL. Currently, Ms. Bravo is an Alzheimer’s (ADRD) Program Consultant and a Training and Direct Care Clinician at First Quality Home Care and Easter Seals South Florida, Miami, Florida. She is also a Geriatric Care Consultant and Supervisor as well as an ADRD Consultant at Neuro Behavioral Associates, Doral, FL.

Ms. Bravo holds a Master of Social Work and a Bachelor of Arts from Florida International University, Miami, FL. She is a sought-after presenter and educator in both English and Spanish.

Dr. Cesar Chirinos studied Clinical Psychology at Carlos Albizu University. He specialized in Neuropsychology and completed his Post-Doctoral training conducting neuropsychological evaluations for the NIH sponsored 1Florida Alzheimer’s Disease Research Center (ADRC) clinical core at the Wien Center for Alzheimer’s Disease and Memory Disorders under the direction of Dr. Ranjan Duara, Dr., Maria Greig-Custo, and Dr. David Loewenstein.

Dr. Chirinos currently coordinates the State of Florida Brain Bank donation program sponsored by the Department of Elder Affairs. Additionally, he is the coordinator of the Memory Disorders Clinic (MDC) and is a backup rater for the ADRC clinical core.

Dr. Rosie Curiel Cid is a Neuropsychologist and Associate Professor in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine and Chief of Cross-Cultural Neuropsychology and Cognitive Neuroscience at the Center for Cognitive Neuroscience and Aging. Dr. Curiel Cid specializes in the early cognitive and functional assessment of neurodegenerative conditions, such as Alzheimer’s disease and related disorders.

She is Principal Investigator of a longitudinal study funded by the National Institutes of Health/National Institute on Aging entitled: Precision-based Computerized Assessment for the Detection of MCI in Older Adults, and is an active Co-investigator on various state and federally funded studies related to aging and cognition including the 1Florida Alzheimer’s Disease Research Center.

Her program of research focuses on the development of novel and cross-culturally applicable cognitive assessment paradigms. She along with Dr. David Loewenstein and their team have generated promising data that these novel cognitive outcome measures are sensitive enough to detect subtle cognitive deficits specific to preclinical Alzheimer’s disease, and are highly associated with biological markers of early AD brain pathology including CSF markers, amyloid imaging and structural and functional neuroimaging. Dr. Curiel Cid’s work focuses on technologically enhancing these innovative cognitive paradigms into user-friendly clinical outcome measures with the goal of advancing cognitive assessment efforts in clinical trials targeting preclinical disease. She and her team have led the development of the brief computerized version of the renowned LASSI-L, a cognitive stress test that has shown sensitivity and specificity at detecting cognitive change in preclinical and prodromal Alzheimer’s disease.

Additional resources

Dr. Duara’s research has focused primarily on early diagnosis of Alzheimer’s disease and other dementias, neuroimaging, genetic epidemiology and the methodology for staging the transition from normal cognitive aging to dementia. He has contributed to over 200 articles in peer-review scientific journals as well many book chapters.

He is the Principal Investigator for the State of Florida Alzheimer’s Disease Initiative Brain Bank and Associate Director of the 1FLORIDA Alzheimer’s Disease Research Center. He has also been an investigator in numerous clinical trials of novel agents for the treatment of Alzheimer’s Disease.

Additional resources: msmc.com/doctor/ranjan-duara/

Mary Jaramillo Mangia, LMHC, is a trilingual (English, Spanish, Italian) Florida board certified Licensed Mental Health Counselor trained in adult and geriatric counseling services that treat mental, behavioral, or emotional disorders and impact on daily functioning. Mary has 24 years of Clinical experience which includes Clinical assessments, administration of Neuropsychological testing, Mental health clinical direction programming for higher levels of care, psychotherapy/psychoeducational group therapy, family counseling, marital counseling, individual counseling. She has also been involved in program design, development, and evaluation, as well as, quality assurance, care coordination, clinical supervision, and patient advocacy with specific focus on the underserved chronically mentally ill, adolescents, elderly, veterans, and homeless populations. Prior to transitioning to her current Directorship role, Mary was also the Mental Health Counselor for 7 years at the Wien Center Clinic, providing direct counseling support and educational training for patients with Early Stage Dementia and Mild Cognitive Impairment, and their caregivers.

Mary currently acts as the Clinical Director of the Mount Sinai Medical Center Outpatient Behavioral Health Center which opened 3 years ago and under her key organizational visionary leadership style it has successfully evolved to achieve its mission of research involvement, community education, delivery of evidenced -based interventions in various therapeutic modalities while facilitating access to essential psychiatric consultation services. Among the modalities she utilizes are evidenced based treatments such as Cognitive Behavioral therapies, dialectical behavioral informed therapy, Acceptance Commitment therapy in addition to a Solution Focused systemic approach integrated with compassionate care. Currently, she is also actively involved in the Florida Dept. of Health Mindsight Pilot program funded by an Ed and Ethel Moore grant. As a team player who is valued in her mental health expertise and guidance on the implementation of programming, she delivers evidence based counseling interventions that support research aimed at addressing challenging emotional issues faced in dealing with a diagnosis such as mild cognitive impairment and or early stages of Dementia.

Mary Jaramillo Mangia earned her undergraduate degree in psychology at Florida International University and her graduate degree in Mental Health Counseling at St. Thomas University in Miami, Florida. She completed her Masters Level Clinical internships at Catholic Charities and Fellowship house of South Florida. These community-based mental health organizations provided her with broad exposure to various cultures and specific emotional challenges, and sensitivity training toward co-morbidities and differential diagnoses. Among her various roles, Mary serves on various hospital wide committees with emphasis on patient safety and community based non-profit initiatives that seek to find treatment options for the underserved and financially challenged. Mary is a member of the American Psychotherapy Association and the American Counseling Association.

Each year, she coordinates a host of community events in Florida which attract over 900 participants. She also serves as the community liaison for the CNSA, and in 2014 received the Claude Pepper Education and Advocacy Award for her work with dementia caregivers. As a licensed clinical social worker in the State of Florida she currently has an active clinic dedicated exclusively to the treatment of older adults (55+) and their care partners and is among a selective group of faculty member at the University of Miami Department of Psychiatry with the expertise to provide competent care to serve this ever-growing population.

She is an academic professor and an accredited clinical supervisor in social work, mental health, and family therapy and has been involved in supervising graduate students in these fields. She is also involved in the Department of Community Services (DOCS) program, which provides screening services and preventive care to underserviced communities. The DOCS program also provides a service-learning opportunity to next generation public minded health care physicians. She initiated and developed a memory screening station where she works directly with medical students in assessing and referring individuals who are experiencing memory loss. She has also collaborated as Co-Investigator and played a central role on numerous national clinical research and clinical trial studies with dementia caregivers and patients with chronic conditions focused on delivering and adapting evidenced-based
interventions to be remotely delivered. Dr. Perdomo is passionate about her work with aging adults and caregivers, her dedication to caregiver research and dementia care demonstrate her strong commitment to the advancement of compassionate geriatric care.

Additionally, Maria conducts cognitive assessments with patients of the Wien Center clinic and evaluates for safety concerns; she is an integral part of the clinical team. Maria has also collaborated with Dr. Iveris Martinez of The California State University-Long Beach and Dr. Elaine Acosta of Florida International University on a National Institute on Aging (NIA) study entitled: Caregiving for Alzheimer’s Disease in a Hispanic Community: Cultural congruence and disparities in the utilization of support services. They are currently awaiting NIA review of a proposed grant entitled: Understanding the experience of care: Developing a culturally-informed model of support for Latino Caregivers of Persons with Dementia.

2022 Alzheimer’s Public Education Forum and

2022 Care Partner Education Forum Recording