This Live Talk is produced by Being Patient with support provided by Cognito Therapeutics. Learn more about Cognito's HOPE Study: https://www.hopestudyforad.com/ – Researchers and technology companies are looking into whether non-invasive, non-drug therapies — like electromagnetic, visual, and auditory stimulation — can treat Alzheimer’s disease. So, what does the science say about these emerging therapies? What can they do for the brain? Dr. Michelle Papka, founder and president of the Cognitiv...
Feb 11, 2025•32 min
This podcast is part of the Journey to Diagnosis series, produced by Being Patient with support provided by Eli Lilly. Learn more about Journey to Diagnosis: https://www.beingpatient.com/journey-to-diagnosis/ Zelik “Zel” Bocknek joined Being Patient Live Talks with his wife, Gail Bocknek, to discuss his experience with diagnosis and living with early-stage Alzheimer’s disease. Zel, a retired business owner, started experiencing memory problems at age 84. He was later diagnosed with early-stage A...
Feb 04, 2025•31 min
Precision medicine is a medical approach that considers a patient’s genes, environment, and lifestyle. In the realm of Alzheimer’s disease, experts are pushing for using this approach to improve diagnosis, treatment, and our understanding of the condition. But what does precision medicine for patients with Alzheimer’s disease and other dementias look like? The Alzheimer’s Drug Discovery Foundation (ADDF)’s Dr. Howard Fillit joins Being Patient Live Talks to discuss precision medicine and its pot...
Feb 02, 2025•38 min
This video is part of the Journey to Diagnosis series, produced by Being Patient with support provided by Eli Lilly. Learn more about Journey to Diagnosis: https://www.beingpatient.com/journey-to-diagnosis/ Award-winning playwright and performer Samuel A. Simon joined Being Patient live talks to discuss his experience with Alzheimer’s and developing and performing his autobiographical play about his diagnosis journey, “Dementia Man, an Existential Journey.” Before becoming involved in theatre as...
Feb 01, 2025•35 min
This podcast is part of the Diversity + Dementia series, produced by Being Patient with support provided by Eisai inc. Learn more about Diversity + Dementia: https://www.beingpatient.com/diversity-and-dementia/ Simone E. Morris and her daughter Millie Walton joined Being Patient Live Talks to discuss their book Remember Me Grammy P, a children’s book about dementia. Morris’s late mother, Patricia D. Edwards, or “Grammy P,” lived with dementia, and the book traces how their family dealt with diag...
Jan 30, 2025•23 min
Award-winning Alzheimer’s and dementia educator and best-selling author Dr. Macie P. Smith joined Being Patient Live Talks to discuss her latest book, “A Dementia Caregiver Called to Action: The Journey.” In the context of her experience as an educator and a licensed gerontology social worker, she’ll also speak to the caregiving needs specific to Black families and Black communities. Smith has over 22 years of experience coordinating care for aging and vulnerable populations. As the author of pa...
Nov 23, 2024•28 min
Alzheimer’s advocate Betsy Groves joined Being Patient Live Talks to discuss her long and rocky journey to an Alzheimer’s diagnosis, her experience living with Alzheimer’s, and her work advocating for other patients on this journey Groves had a career as a clinical social worker in the Boston Medical Center in the Department of Pediatrics where she founded a counseling program for young children affected by trauma. Then, she taught courses in early childhood mental health and development at Harv...
Nov 22, 2024•26 min
Positive Approach to Care founder and dementia care expert Teepa Snow returns to Being Patient Live Talks for “Ask Teepa Anything” to answer Being Patient readers’ questions in real-time. Snow, MS, OTR/L, FAOTA, is an Occupational Therapist with over forty years of clinical and academic experience. Her experiences led her to the development of the GEMS® States of Brain Change and the Positive Approach® training strategies. Her company, Positive Approach to Care® (PAC), provides online and in-per...
Nov 22, 2024•1 hr 1 min
Alzheimer’s disease is the most common form of dementia. Over time, Alzheimer’s progresses through the brain, causing changes that can lead to cognitive decline, and eventually interfering with everyday life, from daily activities like getting dressed, to having conversations. Alzheimer’s affects everyone differently. The timing and severity of symptoms could be different for each person, and it can be difficult to determine which stage your loved one is in as stages may overlap. So, this “7 sta...
Oct 28, 2024•6 min
Receiving an Alzheimer’s diagnosis is often a long, complex process, with many individuals facing delayed diagnosis or even misdiagnosis for years. A key reason for misdiagnosis could be the amount of training doctors are receiving on cognitive decline. University of Washington’s Dr. Barak Gaster is trying to fill that gap in his work directing the Cognition in Primary Care Program, which trains doctors to improve dementia diagnosis and care. Gaster joined Being Patient founder Deborah Kan in a ...
Oct 28, 2024•31 min
Alzheimer’s advocate Myra Garcia joins Being Patient Live Talks to discuss her experience with early-onset Alzheimer’s and her work with the Latino community to shed light on the disease. After a career in classical music, performing in musicals and operas around the world, Garcia changed careers to work in higher education when her second child was born. A decade ago, Garcia started to have difficulty with her job responsibilities working in fundraising at the University of La Verne. A neurolog...
Oct 28, 2024•33 min
Dr. Catherine Madison joins Being Patient Live Talks to discuss how patients experience anosognosia in dementia, which is a neurological condition in which you are unaware of having a particular disease. She’ll explain how understanding this symptom can help caregivers step into dementia’s reality. Madison became a neurologist after being a caregiver to her mother, who died of dementia in 2011. She worked with Dagmar Dolby to open the Ray Dolby Brain Health Center in San Francisco in 2014. At th...
Oct 02, 2024•31 min
Rutgers’ neurologist Dr. William T. Hu joins Being Patient Live Talks to discuss his research on “brain fog” or cognitive impairment in Long COVID and its relation to cognitive decline and Alzheimer’s disease. Read about his research here: https://www.beingpatient.com/long-covid-brain-fog-alzheimers/ Hu directs the Division of Cognitive Neurology and Alzheimer’s Disease Clinic at Robert Wood Johnson Medical School, as well as the Center for Healthy Aging Research at Rutgers Institute for Health....
Oct 02, 2024•39 min
With scientists studying if new semaglutide weight loss drugs could potentially treat dementia, many have questions about the potential impact of Ozempic and Wegovy on the brain. University of Virginia’s Dr. Heather Ferris joins Being Patient Live Talks to discuss the current research on the impact of semaglutide drugs on brain health. An Associate Professor and endocrinologist at the University of Virginia, she specializes in the care of older adults with diabetes. Ferris’s research lab focuses...
Oct 02, 2024•26 min
Alzheimer’s advocate Reda Harrison joins Being Patient Live Talks to discuss her experience with her diagnosis of dementia, and later Mild Cognitive Impairment (MCI), and early-onset Alzheimer’s. She’ll also discuss how those diagnoses led her to work with the Alzheimer’s Association and back into quilting. Harrison was diagnosed with MCI in 2018 and is now in the early stages of Alzheimer’s disease. After a group study on MCI at the University of Kentucky Sanders-Brown Center on Aging, she be...
Aug 23, 2024•28 min
Internationally acclaimed author, Age Wave co-founder, and longevity expert Maddy Dychtwald joined Being Patient Live Talks to discuss her latest book, Ageless Aging: A Woman’s Guide to Increasing Healthspan, Brainspan, and Lifespan (Mayo Clinic Press). She also discussed the research that informed the book and key strategies women can take to improve their brains and overall health as they age. Recognized by Forbes as one of the top fifty female futurists globally, Dychtwald’s work has also bee...
Aug 22, 2024•35 min
UW–Madison School of Medicine and Public Health’s Dr. Melissa Rosenkranz joins us to discuss her research on the link between asthma and dementia, specifically focusing on the impact of chronic, systemic inflammation on brain health. Rosenkranz holds the Distinguished Chair in Contemplative Neuroscience at the Center for Healthy Minds and is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Psychiatry at the UW–Madison School of Medicine and Public Health. Her research focuses on understanding the und...
Aug 22, 2024•21 min
USC Evolutionary Biologist David Raichlen joins Being Patient Live Talks to discuss how exercise and physical activity can benefit brain health, particularly for older adults. Raichlen is a professor at the Human and Evolutionary Biology section of the Department of Biological Sciences at USC. His research focuses on the connection between human evolution, physical activity, and health across the lifespan. Currently, he’s focused on understanding how and why exercise and physical activity benefi...
Aug 22, 2024•38 min
University of California Berkeley neurologist Dr. Mark D’Esposito joined Being Patient live talks to discuss how people concerned about Alzheimer’s risk can optimize their brain health and function. He’ll also discuss how neural mechanisms impact cognition to provide context on strategies for improving brain health. D’Esposito’s research focuses on the neural mechanisms underlying cognition and how the brain recovers from injury, and he’s the writer/editor of seven books on this subject matter. ...
Jun 27, 2024•34 min
While Alzheimer’s disease isn’t curable, research shows it may be preventable or postponable by controlling lifestyle factors like diet. Yet, with so many types of diets emerging, it’s hard to know what’s a fad and what lifestyle changes can actually support brain health. USC’s Dr. Hussein Yassine joins Being Patient live talks to answer questions about how diet affects brain health. Yassine is an associate professor at USC’s Keck School of Medicine. His research is focused on the intersection o...
Jun 24, 2024•40 min
Two thirds of people diagnosed with Alzheimer’s are women. In addition, research shows that Alzheimer’s biomarker tau protein accumulates differently and more quickly in women’s brains. Researchers like Rosalind Franklin University’s Lise Eliot are investigating how differences in brain structure for men and women are impacting Alzheimer’s risk. Eliot joins Being Patient Live Talks to discuss these gender differences in the brain and the current research in this space. Eliot is a professor of ne...
Jun 24, 2024•25 min
Former neuroscience nurse practitioner and Alzheimer’s advocate Doreen Monks joins Being Patient Live Talks to discuss her experience with diagnosis and her path toward advocacy. As she shared in her previous live talk with us, Monk was diagnosed with early-onset Alzheimer’s in 2016 at age 63, after which she became dedicated to sharing her story and working with organizations like Voices of Alzheimer’s, US Against Alzheimer’s, and the Alzheimer’s Association. Leveraging her background in neuros...
Apr 22, 2024•29 min
Sarah Widmeyer joins Being Patient Live Talks to discuss her experience caring for her mother, Elaine, who passed away from Alzheimer’s in 2022, and how the experience set her off on the path to advocating for more gender diversity in clinical research. Widmeyer is an SVP of Wealth Strategies and CMO at Richardson Wealth, and she’s passionate about improving research and access to care for women. The end goal: to improve outcomes for women like her mom. Inspired by her experience as a caregiver ...
Apr 22, 2024•20 min
Pediatric psychotherapist Amanda Sullivan joins Being Patient Live Talks to discuss Leaf, a children’s book that commemorates the life of her mother, who died of frontotemporal dementia (FTD) in 2022. Sullivan wrote the book after struggling to find any children’s books on FTD for her own children. Leaf tells the story of her mother’s life in the hopes of giving young readers a chance to learn more about this type of dementia and the impact it can have on the family. In the live talk, she’ll dis...
Mar 28, 2024•17 min
Brain health researchers are exploring new ways to leverage AI in the diagnosis of diseases like Alzheimer’s. One emerging field of study is that of vocal biomarkers: the way our voices sound. Some companies are even developing personal smart devices to identify vocal biomarkers — and, perhaps one day in the future, to aid in early diagnosis or even disease prevention. We asked David Liu, the CEO of Sonde Health, to join Live Talks to explain this emerging field, and tell us a bit more about the...
Mar 25, 2024•32 min
High-tech treatments for neurodegenerative diseases are on the horizon. In fact, some patients already have brain implants that help address their symptoms through “reprogramming the brain.” Hear from one patient and his doctor about the real-life story behind this innovative new treatment for Parkinson’s. Speaker, author, and Parkinson’s Disease advocate Benjamin Stecher and neurologist Dr. Alfonso Fasano, join Being Patient live talks to discuss their upcoming book on just this topic, Reprogra...
Mar 18, 2024•44 min
In this live-streamed Q&A with Positive Approach to Care founder and dementia care expert Teepa Snow, she answered Being Patient readers’ questions in real-time. Snow, MS, OTR/L, FAOTA, is an Occupational Therapist with over forty years of clinical and academic experience. Her experiences led her to the development of the GEMS® States of Brain Change and the Positive Approach® training strategies. Her company, Positive Approach to Care® (PAC), provides online and in-person education and prod...
Feb 27, 2024•53 min
Alzheimer’s educator and activist Rebecca Chopp, Ph.D., joins Being Patient Live talks to discuss her upcoming book “Still Me: Accepting Alzheimer’s Without Losing Yourself.” As she discussed in a previous live talk with us, she’ll also be speaking about how she defies the stigma of Alzheimer’s by living with joy. Before Chopp’s diagnosis of Mild Cognitive Impairment and Alzheimer’s in 2019, she was a widely published author, editor, and academic in the fields of education, philosophy, religion,...
Feb 27, 2024•35 min
Dr. Ifrah Zawar joins Being Patient Live Talks to discuss seizures, cognitive decline, and dementia. As she discussed in our article on seizures, epilepsy can accelerate cognitive decline, and the condition can also be mistaken for cognitive decline. Watch the live talk to learn more about the connection between seizures, cognitive decline, and dementia.
Feb 21, 2024•58 sec
Lou Niles joins Being Patient Live Talks to discuss his experience taking part in the donanemab clinical trial. The monoclonal antibody drug was revealed to have promising results in late 2023 and is currently awaiting FDA approval. Now retired, Niles previously served as an army officer, a combat helicopter pilot in Vietnam, and as a firefighter and paramedic in San Diego. Because his mother died from Alzheimer’s, he was aware that he could be susceptible to cognitive decline, which led him to ...
Feb 21, 2024•22 min
