ongoing study of caregivers<\/a> for older adults with Lewy body dementia, one of the most common causes of dementia. Fingerman\u2019s study, funded by the National Institutes of Health, is the first of its kind to track caregivers for and family members of older people coping with Lewy body dementia throughout the day.<\/p>\nFingerman said Lewy body dementia is more complicated and can be more demanding than Alzheimer\u2019s, as it exhibits symptoms of Alzheimer\u2019s and Parkinson\u2019s disease, produces hallucinations and causes REM sleep disorders.<\/p>\n
Work that Fingerman undertook while pursuing psychology degrees sparked her curiosity about research involving older adults. She entered graduate school to study adolescence. But when a professor whose research focused on aging recruited Fingerman to interview study participants from all age groups, she discovered talking with older adults was more captivating than talking with younger people.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey were the most interesting people. They\u2019d lived full lives, and their stories reflected that,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
After that experience, Fingerman pivoted toward the field of \u201csuccessful aging,\u201d seeking to learn why some older people don\u2019t experience declines.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are the first generations of human beings who\u2019ve ever gotten to be on this planet expecting to live to old age. And it shapes every decision we make, every experience we have,\u201d said Fingerman.<\/p>\n
Explaining that the study of aging is a new \u201cphenomenon,\u201d she added: \u201cWhat could be more interesting than that?\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Karen Fingerman Wilson Regents Professor in Human Ecology, Department of Human Development and Family Sciences in the College…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":90200,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[132,134,133,517,3618,13177,13178,858],"class_list":["post-90199","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-austin","tag-austin","tag-austin-headlines","tag-austin-news","tag-college-of-liberal-arts","tag-college-of-natural-sciences","tag-dell-medical-school","tag-faculty","tag-research"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/90199","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=90199"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/90199\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/90200"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=90199"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=90199"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=90199"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![\"Karen](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/karen_fingerman-240x300.jpg\")
Karen Fingerman<\/p>\n