Beating the Dementia Monster

Book excerpt: Second edition, updated and expanded. In 2015 Dave Brown was diagnosed with "early stage senile dementia, likely of the Alzheimer's type." MRIs found that his brain had atrophied significantly, and he did poorly on cognitive tests. He experienced episodes in which he couldn't remember his phone number or zip code of 30 years. He had to stop driving, and he became confused when crossing the street. His doctors sadly informed him that he had mild cognitive impairment (MCI) due to Alzheimer's disease. The disease could only be expected to advance. Three years later he was excelling on cognitive tests, driving safely, and functioning normally. What happened? Dave blended the advice he got from his medical care team with his detailed research on the science of dementia and Alzheimer's disease. He developed what he calls The Dementia Toolkit; an approach to generating the physiological changes in the body that can slow, stop, and even reverse the advance of the symptoms of Alzheimer's disease. In this book he details each piece of the toolkit and explains what science understands about them. In the first edition of Beating the Dementia Monster, Dave gave an account of the early but remarkable improvements he was experiencing in his cognition. In this updated and significantly expanded edition, he is joined by Dr. Vaishali S. Phatak, Associate Professor of Neuropsychology at the University of Nebraska Medical School. Dr. Phatak provides additional insight on Dave's experience and on the science of neuropsychology. There is no cure for Alzheimer's, but Dave's experience shows that there is a lot that can be done to recover as much as a decade from this horrible disease.