Brain Talk | Being Patient for Alzheimer's Patients and Caregivers

The symptoms of early-onset Alzheimer’s disease doesn’t always begin with the memory changes that many people associate with dementia. For some, the first signs may involve vision, language, decision-making, behavior, or changes in daily functioning. Dr. Gil Rabinovici, a professor of neurology and radiology at the University of California, San Francisco, and a behavioral neurologist at the UCSF E...

Blood tests and other biomarkers are bringing researchers closer to detecting Alzheimer’s disease before memory loss begins — a shift that could reshape prevention, treatment, and the way families think about risk. Dr. Joshua Grill, director of the UC Irvine Institute for Memory Impairments and Neurological Disorders (UCI MIND) and UCI’s NIA-funded Alzheimer’s Disease Research Center, explains how...

An Alzheimer’s disease or dementia diagnosis can leave families unsure of what comes next. In his new book, Dr. Nathaniel Chin offers families a guide to navigating Alzheimer’s disease and other dementias, from the first signs of memory loss to the later stages of care. Chin, the medical director and clinical core co-lead of the Wisconsin Alzheimer’s Disease Research Center and an associate profes...

Can memory be trained? Six-time USA Memory Champion Nelson Dellis says the answer is yes. He explains simple techniques to help people strengthen recall, focus and confidence in everyday life. Dellis is a memory coach, author, speaker and one of the world’s top competitive memorizers. Inspired by his grandmother’s death from Alzheimer’s disease, he began training his memory in 2009 and later found...

Bacteria found in the eye may offer new clues about inflammation, cognitive decline, and the progression of Alzheimer’s disease. Dr. Maya Koronyo-Hamaoui, a professor of neurosurgery, neurology and biomedical sciences at Cedars-Sinai Health Sciences University, has found that Chlamydia pneumoniae, a common respiratory bacterium, may be linked to Alzheimer’s disease-related changes in the brain and...

Brain donation is helping researchers better understand why Alzheimer’s disease and related neurodegenerative disorders develop, progress, and affect people differently. Dr. Melissa Murray is a professor of neuroscience at Mayo Clinic in Jacksonville, Florida, where her research focuses on the biological changes, including tauopathies, that drive Alzheimer’s and related neurodegenerative disorders...

Women make up about two-thirds of people diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease, but experts say longer life expectancy alone does not explain the gap. Dr. Jessica Caldwell’s research focuses on how sex and gender influence Alzheimer’s disease risk, resilience, and progression, including the roles of genetics, menopause, lifestyle factors, and life stressors.  Caldwell is a neuropsychologist and inves...

Journey to Diagnosis is a Being Patient series sponsored by Eisai. As with all of our reporting, the sponsor has no role in choosing guests, shaping questions, or reviewing content before publication. Eisai: https://www.eisai.com/index.htmlJourney to Diagnosis: https://beingpatient.com/journey-to-diagnosis/Juli Chenault first began noticing memory lapses in 2008 while working as a business represe...

This interview is brought to you in partnership with Eisai and is part of the Journey to Diagnosis series. Eisai: https://www.eisai.com/index.htmlJourney to Diagnosis: https://beingpatient.com/journey-to-diagnosis/Bob Ehlers was diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease at 58 and has since become an advocate for early diagnosis, clinical trial participation, and using technology to support people liv...

For aging adults and people experiencing memory changes, everyday technology can be confusing, frustrating, and difficult to navigate. Angela Cearns is the founder and CEO of AsKevin, which offers workshops and digital coaching to help older adults and those with cognitive challenges — including Alzheimer’s, dementia, and Parkinson’s disease — better understand and use technology. In this conversa...

When a loved one is diagnosed with dementia, caregivers are often thrust into a world of difficult decisions — from whether it's time to consider a care home to how to respond when a spouse becomes unrecognizable in temperament. Dementia care expert Teepa Snow, an occupational therapist with more than 40 years of clinical and academic experience, emphasizes that successful caregiving often dep...

This interview is brought to you in partnership with Eisai and is part of the Journey to Diagnosis series. Eisai: https://www.eisai.com/index.htmlJourney to Diagnosis: https://beingpatient.com/journey-to-diagnosis/Nancy Nelson received an early-onset Alzheimer’s diagnosis in 2013 — news that changed her life and forced her to rethink what the future could look like. Nelson has channeled her diagno...

This interview is brought to you in partnership with Eisai and is part of the Journey to Diagnosis series. Eisai: https://www.eisai.com/index.htmlJourney to Diagnosis: https://beingpatient.com/journey-to-diagnosis/Andrew Reid was 56 when he was diagnosed with early-onset Alzheimer’s after unexplained changes that affected his work, driving, and daily functioning. He lives with a rare form of the d...

After Deborah Kan’s mother, Alvera Kan, died in December of last year, the family donated her brain to UCSF to better understand what type of dementia she had. The answer came back with not just one diagnosis, but three different types of dementia: Alzheimer’s disease, vascular dementia, and LATE. Kan and her sister, Susan Whitaker, are joined by Dr. Bruce Miller, director of the UCSF Edward and P...

Dr. Michael Fossel, MD, PhD is a physician-scientist and recognized expert in aging and telomere biology. He serves as chairman of the board of Telocyte, a biotech company developing telomerase therapy for Alzheimer’s disease, with FDA-sponsored human trials planned to target the underlying disease process. Fossel has authored more than 100 scientific publications and has lectured internationally,...

Conversations about cognitive impairment can feel confusing and hard to navigate. You may notice small changes and not know whether to bring it up, how to bring it up, or what the “right” approach is without causing fear, defensiveness, or shame. Dr. Dani Cabral is a neurologist and psychiatrist with more than 15 years of experience in Alzheimer’s care and clinical research. She founded BrainLove...

This interview is brought to you in partnership with Eisai and is part of the Journey to Diagnosis series. Eisai: https://www.eisai.com/index.htmlJourney to Diagnosis: https://beingpatient.com/journey-to-diagnosis/Ben Draper was just 47 when he was diagnosed with early-onset Alzheimer’s. In the years leading up to that diagnosis, he and his wife, Robin, began noticing changes. Ben struggled with e...

This interview is brought to you in partnership with Eisai and is part of the Journey to Diagnosis series. Eisai: https://www.eisai.com/index.html Journey to Diagnosis: https://beingpatient.com/journey-to-diagnosis/ What are the early signs of primary progressive aphasia (PPA)?In this Being Patient Live Talk, Samuel Valverde and his wife, Heather, share their journey to a diagnosis of primary prog...

Parkinson’s can affect speech and swallowing—often starting with subtle changes like a softer or raspy voice. Without treatment, these issues can progress, making communication harder and increasing the risk of swallowing complications, including aspiration. In this Live Talk, Samantha Elandary, MA, CCC-SLP—speech-language pathologist and President & CEO of the Parkinson Voice Project—shares w...

Exercise can ease Parkinson’s symptoms — but can it also slow the disease itself? In this Being Patient Live Talk, Northwestern University researcher Daniel Corcos, PhD breaks down the science behind high-intensity aerobic exercise and why his team is putting it to the test in a major Phase 3 clinical trial (SPARX3). SPARX3 is designed to examine whether exercise intensity can influence Parkinson’...

High blood pressure is one of the most common and treatable risk factors for cognitive decline, and researchers are still working to understand exactly how it affects the brain. A preclinical study from Weill Cornell Medicine, published in Neuron , suggests hypertension may trigger early gene expression changes in the brain, affecting neurons, blood vessels, and white matter before there’s any mea...

Older adults often turn to prescription and over-the-counter sleep aids — but what do we really know about their long-term effects on brain health? A large, long-running UCSF study, published in the Journal of Alzheimer’s Disease, examined the association between sleep medication use and risk of dementia in older adults. Researchers found that frequent use of sleep medications was linked to a high...

This interview was brought to you in partnership with Eisai and is part of the Journey to Diagnosis series. Eisai: https://www.eisai.com/index.htmlJourney to Diagnosis: https://beingpatient.com/journey-to-diagnosis/Luke Davis spent four decades as a Dallas attorney — and an active husband, father, youth sports coach and school board member — before subtle memory changes raised concerns. In this Be...

Can your brain’s “anti-reward” system sabotage motivation — and can you train it to work for you instead of against you? In this Live Talk, Being Patient founder Deborah Kan sits down with Dr. Kyra Bobinet, physician, public health leader, and behavior expert, to explain the science of the habenula — a tiny brain structure with an outsized role in motivation, habits, cravings, stress, and setbacks...

Before his Alzheimer’s diagnosis, Greg Nelson spent his career as a leadership developer helping others grow. About a year and a half ago, his wife Shasta began to notice changes in his memory and urged him to get evaluated. They went to UC Davis’s  Healthy Aging Clinic, where cognitive testing suggested mild cognitive impairment (MCI). A neurologist later ordered a PET scan and by mid-February, G...