Foundational Strategies for Alzheimer's Prevention

👋 I'm Karina, and I started my career in healthcare as a clinical dietitian and then later returned to school to train in naturopathic medicine. I have been practicing as a licensed naturopathic doctor since 2007, first in Vancouver, BC and then on Vancouver Island. Shortly after moving my practice to the Cowichan Valley in 2013, I started seeing a lot more patients who came to me with concerns about dementia prevention and healthy aging. Around that time, Dr Dale Bredesen (an American neurologist) published a paper called “Reversal of Cognitive Decline: A Novel Therapeutic Program”. When I read the paper, I noticed that his approach was very similar to how I had been trained as a naturopathic doctor:

1) find the causes of disease and dysfunction that were unique to the individual

2) remove things that were causing harm

3) add in things that were missing or deficient

Dr Bredesen’s focus on a multi-pronged approach made sense to me and I set about trying to use his program with patients. In 2016, I travelled to his research facility at the Buck Institute for Research on Aging in Novato, California to participate in a practitioner training in the “Bredesen Protocol”. I have been using what I learned there, in addition to my naturopathic training and skill set, with patients ever since. After working with many patients at different stages of brain health, I have chosen to focus on prevention in my practice.

Dementia prevention has many layers. Some are straight forward and well accepted: don’t smoke, get exercise and eat a “healthy diet”. But there are many other factors to consider and my biggest challenge in a solo practice is having enough time to discuss these topics in detail with my patients. My goal for this course is to create a comprehensive overview of ways that you can be proactive with your brain health as you age. Because brain changes that cause dementia can start decades before we actually see symptoms, it’s never too early to think about prevention. And fortunately, the actions you take for brain health are also beneficial for the prevention of other chronic diseases, like heart disease and diabetes.

There are many people doing great educational work in the dementia field and this course is an integration of things I have learned from the work of many people, including Dr Dale Bredesen, Dr Ann Hathaway and Dr David Perlmutter and from my training and work as a naturopathic doctor in the areas of herbal medicine, nutrient supplementation, digestive health, hormone therapies and laboratory assessment.

This course has been set up to give me the time and space to share what I have learned so far with you. It is a series of video modules, some short and some longer (15 minutes – 2.5 hours!), that gives you the opportunity to learn at your own pace. There is an option to submit questions and have answers posted after each lesson!

A recent participant had this to say, "“What a wonderful course, thank you. I appreciated the review. Having it all in one place in this course is so helpful because reading stuff (a book, or stuff on the internet) leads one down many rabbit holes. I also know that you've told me about many of these things but this puts it in a bigger framework and I can't imagine how much one would pay for one-on-one for these 10ish hours of education, and they do build on and reinforce each other. I have made a long (very long) list of the things that I may want to explore further, or try, or that I already do. Remembering that I already do many good things is also valuable. It helped me to see the continuum of good to "bad" things rather than feeling like I should be doing more.”

Important: Please note that this course is meant for general health education and that no patient-doctor relationship is formed when you listen to, or participate in these modules. I can share information but I can not prescribe anything to you as an individual or offer medical advice that is specific to you.

Thank you for showing up with interest and an open mind. I hope you find this course interesting and valuable for you and your loved ones.

Best wishes,

Karina Wickland, ND