Requirements For Apc Participation
All patients who would like a consultation for Alzheimer’s prevention and/or enrollment in the APC Brain Healthy Lifestyle Program should be under the care of a primary care physician and follow up with the APC at least every 6-12 months. Patients must send copies of all recent physician office notes and laboratory and radiology results including brain imaging results and have actual radiology images on a CD-ROM mailed to the clinic at least 4 weeks before the appointment. Most insurance plans are accepted.
What You Can Do To Prevent Alzheimer’s
Transcript: What You Can Do to Prevent Alzheimer’s
Dr. Richard Isaacson, Director of the Alzheimers Prevention Clinic at Weill Cornell Medicine, shares the just-published results of his groundbreaking clinical trial which show that a personalized prevention plan can dramatically lower the risk or progression of Alzheimer’s. Also joining the discussion is one of Dr. Isaacsons patients who is living proof that this new approach works.
Dr. Stieg: Dr. Richard Issacson, one of the leading authorities on Alzheimer’s disease joins me today to talk about Alzheimers disease and the results from his groundbreaking clinical trial. I’m also especially pleased to welcome one of Dr. Isaacson’s patients from the trial, Karen Segal. Karen became a leading advocate for Alzheimer’s prevention after her mother was diagnosed with early onset Alzheimer’s. Currently a board member of Us Against Alzheimer’s, she is focusing our efforts on increased awareness of the critical need for Alzheimer’s prevention. Welcome to you, Richard and you Karen, and thank you so much for being here.
Dr. Isaacson: Thank you.
Karen Segal: Thank you.
Dr. Stieg: Richard, I was hoping that you could go into a little bit of detail. You’ve established the Alzheimer’s Disease Prevention Clinic at Weill Cornell Medicine, and as a result of that, you’ve been following, I believe, over 100 patients and published your results with what we can do to prevent and improve cognitive function. Can you go through that?
When It Comes To Preventing Alzheimers Women And Men Are Not Created Equal
Richard Isaacson, M.D., leads first study to define sex differences in outcomes of tailored AD clinical interventions
Florida Atlantic University
image: Richard Isaacson, M.D., director, Alzheimer’s Prevention Clinic in the Center for Brain Health at FAUs Schmidt College of Medicine, measures a patients percentage of body fat and muscle mass over time to evaluate response to therapies and help refine exercise and nutrition plans.view more
After increasing age, the most significant risk factor for Alzheimers disease is sex two-thirds of patients with AD are females. In fact, even when accounting for gender-dependent mortality rates, age at death, and differences in lifespan, women still have twice the risk of incidence.
A study headed by Florida Atlantic Universitys Richard S. Isaacson, M.D., a leading neurologist and researcher, and collaborators from NewYork-Presbyterian/Weill Cornell Medicine, is the first to examine if sex significantly affects cognitive outcomes in people who follow individually-tailored, multi-domain clinical interventions. The study also determined whether change in risk of developing cardiovascular disease and AD, along with blood markers of AD risk, also were affected by sex. Other studies have focused on the role of hormones and sex-specific risk factors when examining differences in AD risk, but none have explored if these interventions result in differences in real-world clinical practice.
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Personalized Medicine And Personalized Nutrition
We use the latest scientific evidence and consider a variety of factors such as current and past medical problems, genetics, and nutritional patterns to tailor therapies for each patient. These principles form the core of our APC approach. We emphasize lifestyle and nutritional approaches and collect data to help further the scientific study of the effects of dietary modifications on brain health.
Memory Care: The Alzheimers Prevention Clinic
For the most part, Western health care has historically focused on the treatment of disease rather than prevention. But as our collective knowledge advances, that landscape is rapidly changing, and the Alzheimers Prevention Clinic at the NewYork-Presbyterian/Weill Cornell Medical Center is a great example of this paradigm shift.
As a senior living community that provides specialized memory care services, Garden of Palms keeps up with the latest research on Alzheimers and other memory-related illnesses. In this article, well take a closer look at the Alzheimers Prevention Clinic, which belongs to one of the best memory care programs in the country.
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The Alzheimers Prevention Clinic Begins New Project To Educate Students On The Disease
The Alzheimers Prevention Clinic Begins New Project to Educate Students on the Disease
The Alzheimers Prevention Clinic at New York-Presbyterian/Weill Cornell Medical Center is a unique facility, the first of its kind in the United States. Its partner organization, Alzheimers Universe at AlzU.org, offers free, online educational lessons for people with Alzheimers disease and their caregivers and family members.
Read more about the new project educating young students about the disease.
Brain Health: More Diet Than Destiny
Of all the organs in our body, the brain is the one most easily damaged by a poor diet. From its very architecture to its ability to perform, everything in the brain calls out for the proper food. In fact, the only way for the brain to receive nourishment is through our diet. Day after day, the foods we eat are broken down into nutrients, taken up into the bloodstream and carried to the brain to replenish depleted storage, activate cellular reactions, and finally, to be incorporated into our very brain tissue.
After rigorous study, it turns out that eating the wrong foods affects far more than our waistlines. When we eat a fatty, sugary meal and experience symptoms like sluggishness, brain fog, drowsiness — what many of us dont realize is that these symptoms originate not in the stomach but in the brain. The latest research, including my own work, indicates that a poor diet causes the loss of key structural and functional elements in the brain, with an aggressively higher vulnerability to brain aging and dementia. Our published studies are here.
This work is funded by National Institute of Health/ National Institute on Aging grants AG035137 and AG022374 funding from the Dept. of Neurology at Weill Cornell Medical College and philanthropic support of the Alzheimers Prevention Clinic, Weill Cornell Memory Disorders Program.
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Innovative Alzheimer Prevention Research At Ifn : Richard Isaacson Md
The director of the Alzheimers Prevention Clinic at Weill Cornell Medicine discussed the topics and ideas that clinicians should look forward to at the 2021 International Congress on the Future of Neurology.
“The first FDA approved drug for Alzheimer disease in almost 20 years was approved not long ago. Theres been a lot of controversy, but we can understand both sides. The pros and the cons. Dr. Sabagh will do that.
Richard S. Isaacson, MD, currently serves as the director of the Alzheimers Prevention Clinic, Weill Cornell Memory Disorders Program, and Neurology Residency Training Program at Weill Cornell Medical College/New York-Presbyterian Hospital. The third annual International Congress on the Future of Neurology , held virtually from September 17-18, which will feature presentations on the most recent advancements in neurology, including that within Alzheimer disease , with also feature Isaacson. As an expert within the space, he will be heading the Updates in Alzheimer Disease section of the meeting.
With several new developments within the field, including most notably, the FDA approval of the first disease-modifying therapy since 2003, there is good reason for buzz, according to Isaacson. He also emphasized raising education worldwide among clinicians regarding pushing healthy lifestyles to high-risk individuals and thus increasing AD prevention.
The Comparative Effectiveness Dementia & Alzheimers Registry Project
The CEDAR Project is the primary registry for all patients presenting for memory loss prevention or treatment due to AD, other neurodegenerative dementias, or other causes. All patients presenting to the clinic have the opportunity to donate their de-identified clinical data to the registry. The primary aim of the registry is to establish a well-characterized cohort of individuals with or at risk for AD or other dementias who will be primed to benefit from preventative strategies and disease-modifying interventions expected to continue to emerge in the coming decade.
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The Consensus Diagnostic Process
Although biomarker-based criteria are available for diagnosing Preclinical AD, no criteria have been formally developed to clinically diagnose individuals who are in prodromal stages of AD or other dementias. At the APC, we have drafted a preliminary diagnostic schema to aid clinicians in detecting patients with no or minor memory complaints who may be at higher risk for neurodegenerative disease, or already in Preclinical AD .3). These criteria highlight more refined patient classifications that otherwise would be classified as normal. We classify patients who have no significant cognitive symptoms/findings as Normal with Low, Moderate or High Risk, using commonly available risk indices for cerebrovascular disease and AD. Specifically, Normal-High Risk patients are those who we predict to already be biomarker positive . Normal-Moderate Risk patients are those with a significant family history of AD with any number of modifiable risk factors , yet we predict that they are AD biomarker negative. Normal-Low Risk patients are those with no significant family history of AD with no or few modifiable risk factors.
A New Approach To Alzheimer’s Disease Management
Alzheimer’s disease doesn’t just affect the patient it affects the entire family. The Alzheimer’s Prevention Clinic at Weill Cornell Medicine and NewYork-Presbyterian was founded in 2013 by Dr. Richard Isaacson, who has several family members affected.
The clinic focuses on cutting-edge prevention strategies & comprehensive education for the whole family. To schedule a visit call 746-0226 or email .
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The Dietary Intervention To Slow Memory Loss Due To Alzheimers Study
This study is a prospective, observational feasibility and pilot study of patients receiving nutritional and lifestyle counseling as part of routine clinical care at the APC. Nutritional and other lifestyle interventions have been shown to delay the onset of cognitive decline in controlled trials. These interventions may be most effective in patients with preclinical AD, prior to the onset of neuronal loss. However, no formal clinical criteria currently exist to classify individuals with preclinical AD without the use of expensive biomarker testing. Moreover, the effectiveness of nutritional interventions in real-world clinical, as opposed to controlled settings, has not been demonstrated.
Weill Cornell Alzheimer’s Prevention Clinic: The First Of Its Kind
Few discussions acknowledge that less than 1% of the population develops Alzheimers disease because of a rare genetic mutation in their DNA. For the remaining 99% of of the population, the real risk is not determined by our genes, but rather by the complex interplay of a multitude of factors including how we live our lives.
Recent groundbreaking population-based estimates showed that over one third of all Alzheimers cases might be preventable by leading a healthy lifestyle. At least 1 in every 3 Alzheimer’s cases might be prevented by improving lifestyle choices in terms of diet, exercise, intellectual stimulation, and vascular risk reduction. Further, these interventions should be even more effective at achieving optimal cognitive fitness in every part of our lives.
This work is funded by National Institute of Health/ National Institute on Aging 2P01AG026572 funding from the Dept. of Neurology at Weill Cornell Medical College and philanthropic support of the Alzheimers Prevention Clinic, Weill Cornell Memory Disorders Program.
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Many Small Improvements To Health May Enhance Cognitive Function And Reduce Risk Of Alzheimers
Dr. Richard Isaacson. Credit: Stephanie Diani
Personalized medical interventions to improve cardiovascular, metabolic and other modifiable risk factors for Alzheimers disease may improve cognitive function, according to a study led by researchers at Weill Cornell Medicine and NewYork-Presbyterian. If confirmed with larger studies, the researchers approach could become a common way of extending cognitive health, which may reduce risk of Alzheimers dementia in late life.
The study, published Oct. 30 in Alzheimers & Dementia: The Journal of the Alzheimers Association, enrolled 174 people with a family history of Alzheimers disease who contacted the Alzheimers Prevention Clinic at Weill Cornell Medicine and NewYork-Presbyterian. The researchers gave each participant detailed recommendations based on the participants body composition , blood pressure, cholesterol level, blood sugar level, genetics, cognitive test scores and several other factors that have been linked to Alzheimers risk. This approach was termed individualized clinical management of people at risk for Alzheimers dementia, which is based on emerging concepts of precision medicine. The investigators found that after 18 months, most participants had improved their scores on a combination of cognitive tests related to the type of cognitive decline that occurs in patients with Alzheimers disease.
Family History Of Alzheimer’s Disease: It’s All About Your Mother
A family history of Alzheimer’s disease significantly increases the risk for developing this disorder. We showed that which of your parents has the disease is very important. In fact, as further proof that female sex really matters, people whose mothers have Alzheimer’s show increased risk of developing Alzheimer’s themselves.
Alzheimer’s is the most common form of dementia in late-life, affecting over 5 million elderly in the United States alone. In order to develop preventative treatments, it is necessary to identify those individuals who are at highest risk for developing Alzheimer’s. People with a parent affected by Alzheimer’s are at increased risk for developing the disease, but the biological and genetic mechanisms accounting for this increased risk are not known.
In a series of studies using biological markers of Alzheimer’s, from brain imaging to cerebrospinal fluid proteins, we compared people with a maternal or paternal history of Alzheimer’s, as well as those with both parents with Alzheimer’s, to those with no family history. No matter which technique we used, only people whose mothers had Alzheimer’s showed altered levels of Alzheimer’s biomarkers, including reduced brain activity, increased brain atrophy, and increased accumulation of beta-amyloid protein , as well as proteins involved with oxidative stress . In contrast, individuals whose fathers had Alzheimer’s and those with no family history had levels within normal range.
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Alzheimer’s Prevention Clinic & Research Center Of Puerto Rico
In research collaboration with the Alzheimer’s Prevention Clinic at Weill Cornell Medicine
Director: Dr. Josefina Meléndez-Cabrero In 2016, the Alzheimer’s Prevention Clinic & Research Center of Puerto Rico was founded. Offering comprehensive evaluation and management for people with no symptoms of memory loss and a family history of Alzheimer’s disease , we aim to address modifiable risk factors to delay the onset of cognitive decline.
Location: Ave. Muñoz Rivera 867, Edif. Vick Center, B-101 San Juan, Puerto Rico, +1 939-645-8154
A Multimodal Prevention Strategy
While there is no disease-modifying therapy currently available for treatment, Dr. Isaacson believes combining a variety of evidence-based low-risk interventions along with lifestyle modifications may help to delay, or in some cases, possibly prevent the progression toward dementia. He is not alone in this thinking. Observational studies have shown that modifiable vascular, metabolic, and lifestyle-related factors have been associated with dementia risk. Findings from the 2015 Finnish Geriatric Intervention Study to Prevent Cognitive Impairment and Disability , a groundbreaking two-year proof-of-concept randomized controlled trial of over 1,200 people, suggest that a multidomain intervention diet, exercise, cognitive training, and vascular risk monitoring could improve or maintain cognitive functioning in at-risk elderly over time.
These interventions were found to be as effective in individuals who have the most common gene for late-onset Alzheimers disease, notes Dr. Isaacson. So, not only do we have some control over our destiny, it may even be possible to win the tug-of-war against our genes.
Dr. Isaacson puts his beliefs into practice for himself as well. Essentially, everything I tell my patients to do in terms of making the right lifestyle choices, I do myself, he says. I firmly believe that these changes can reduce my own personal risk, as well as my patients risk, while also benefiting overall health.
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Richard S Isaacson Md To Lead Alzheimers Disease Prevention
Richard S. Isaacson, M.D., a world-renowned neurologist and researcher, and director of the newly launched FAU Center for Brain Health within the Schmidt College of Medicine.
Florida Atlantic Universityis pleased to welcome Richard S. Isaacson, M.D., a world-renowned neurologist and researcher, as director of the newly launched FAU Center for Brain Health within the Schmidt College of Medicine, established through the generous support of The Harry T. Mangurian, Jr. Foundation. He also will direct the Alzheimers Prevention Clinic and lead an academic clinical research program aimed at reducing the risk of Alzheimers disease , Parkinsons disease, and Lewy body dementia in individuals with a family history of these diseases who do not yet have any cognitive decline or other clinical complaints.
Most people are unaware that Alzheimers disease and related dementias begin silently in the brain decades before memory loss and other symptoms begin. This leaves ample time to make brain healthy choices in an effort to reduce risk and protect against cognitive decline, said Isaacson. I am excited to join FAUs Schmidt College of Medicine to help identify patients at risk and to design personalized prevention strategies to delay or possibly prevent the onset of these diseases.
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Alzheimers And Prevention: Who Would Have Thought
Dr. Richard S. Isaacson
It is estimated that 47 million Americans have preclinical Alzheimers disease and are not yet exhibiting symptoms. This offers specialists such as Richard S. Isaacson, MD, Director of the Alzheimers Prevention Clinic at NewYork-Presbyterian/Weill Cornell Medical Center, a unique opportunity to intervene early on in the process.
Dr. Isaacson has four family members with Alzheimers disease. While his family history led to the decision to specialize in the treatment of Alzheimers, it also informed the way that he approached the overall management of the disease. Is Alzheimers primed to join other chronic diseases like heart disease and diabetes, which have modifiable risk factors? Research from population attributable risk models indicates that one out of three cases of Alzheimers may be preventable, and Dr. Isaacson wholeheartedly agrees.
In 2018, we can feel more comfortable using Alzheimers and prevention in the same sentence because the totality of evidence demonstrates that we can reduce risk.
Dr. Richard S. Isaacson
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