The NIA IMPACT Collaboratory has been featured in a New York Times opinion piece about the effects of COVID-19 restrictions on people living with dementia and their caregivers. Jill Harrison, PhD, Executive Director of the IMPACT Collaboratory, and Jason Karlawish, MD, the leader of the Ethics & Regulation Core are quoted, as is Sarah Berry, MD, MPH, the multiple PI of IMPACT-C, a COVID-19 supplement to the IMPACT Collaboratory. Dr. Harrison’s quote “We are Going to Keep you Safe, Even if It Kills Your Spirit” serves as the title.

“Dr. Karlawish thinks that blanket bans on dementia caregivers are akin to taking away a wheelchair from a person with physical disabilities. ‘And that’s a brutal metaphor,’ he said. ‘But all of a sudden, the people who would come there and help their minds function were taken away.’ Some geriatricians describe this separation as unfortunate and damaging, but necessary. Others believe that we should have allowed for a gentler nursing home quarantine, one that recognizes caregivers as ‘essential’ parts of dementia health care.

Jill Harrison, an executive director of the National Institute on Aging’s IMPACT Collaboratory, thinks the instinct to lock everything down reflects a broader tendency in dementia care to prioritize physical safety above all else… ‘I always call it surplus safety,’ Dr. Harrison told me. ‘It’s essentially like, we are going to keep you safe, even if it kills your spirit.’”

Read the full piece here.