Episode 20: Medical-Community Partnership for Parkinson’s Wellness
The Edmond J. Safra National Parkinson’s Wellness Initiative aims to build community hubs for people with Parkinson’s – outside the medical setting – to create more opportunities for exercise, connect people to support and educational resources and provide motivation to get out and be active. Founded ten years ago in New York and now expanded to Boston, Chicago, Tampa, FL, and Washington, DC, the initiative is a partnership between Parkinson’s Foundation Centers of Excellence and Jewish Community Centers, with support from the Edmond J. Safra Philanthropic Foundation. Clinical social worker Amy Lemen of New York University Langone Medical Center was the original project lead for the New York program and led expansion of the national network. She describes the program, what it offers, who can participate and how.
Released: January 16, 2018
Ms. Lemen is Director of Development in the Office of Development and Alumni Affairs at NYU Langone Health. At the time of this interview, she was the Parkinson's Foundation Center of Excellence Coordinator for the Fresco Institute for Parkinson’s and Movement Disorders at NYU Langone Health, where she worked from its founding in 2007 until 2017. She was also Managing Director of the Edmond J. Safra National Parkinson’s Wellness Initiative and founding Project Lead for the Edmond J. Safra Parkinson's Wellness Program-NYC. She co-founded the Fresco Institute’s Edmond J. Safra Interdisciplinary Home Visit Program for Advanced Parkinson’s, a clinical research program designed to extend specialized services into the home to improve quality of life and outcomes for vulnerable patients and their families. She also founded and was clinical supervisor for the Fresco Institute’s Master of Social Work Internship Program, a clinical training program developed in collaboration with the NYU Silver School of Social Work to raise Parkinson’s disease competencies for social workers.
Ms. Lemen has presented on the concepts of social work, multimodal care and medical-community partnership to improve Parkinson's outcomes at the national and international levels. She is a psychotherapist specializing in helping individuals, care partners and families adapt to the emotional experience of living with Parkinson’s, movement disorders and other neurodegenerative syndromes. She was the recipient of an Individual Recognition Award from NYU Langone Health for superior overall performance in support of the mission, vision and values of the Medical Center in 2012. She received her bachelor of arts from NYU and master’s degree in social work from the NYU Silver School of Social Work. She is Research Assistant Professor of Neurology and Medicine, NYU School of Medicine, and Adjunct Assistant Professor, NYU Silver School of Social Work.
