Stephanie Figon, MS, RDN, LD

A Brain Recovery Dietitian Specialist

Senior Moments: Nothing to Joke About

Remember when you were in your 20’s. Your body and your brain were at their peak and you wondered about the obvious “dumb mistakes” of people in the older generations. Now, maybe you or someone you love is the one having these “senior moments.”

Thankfully, our brains give us a good deal of warning when they are in the process of decline. It starts out with that “senior moment” when you can’t recall a detail you know that you should have easily thought of. A momentary sense of disorientation, not being able to calculate a tip, read a map, or recall a friend’s name. Initially, it’s easy to hide these deficits. We use more post-it notes and we write things down. We set alarms on our smartphones.

Half of all 85-year-olds have Dementia-But Warnings Start Years Earlier

We hide and deny and apologize for these lapses in brain function because we don’t think there’s anything anyone can do. Mention it to a doctor, and they’ll check a few labs and say it’s just part of aging. DON’T BELIEVE IT–BRAIN DYSFUNCTION IS NOT A NORMAL PART OF AGING and there’s so much you can do to stop the decline. If you’re noticing these things, your brain is actively in the process of cutting the number of neurons it’s supporting. Research has uncovered dozens of factors that drive this process of cutting back and dozens of other factors that can make those neurons grow again–so much growth that it can be measured easily on an MRI, something neurologists thought was impossible just a few years ago!

Why You Should Never Expect an Effective Drug For Alzheimer’s

The pharmaceutical industry has wasted billions on one failed drug approach after another in their pursuit of a pill to stop Alzheimer’s disease. The medical community throughout the 20th century made tremendous advancements by finding single drug agents to treat each diagnosis. But dementia doesn’t have just one cause. The problem researchers have failed to acknowledge is that each person has a unique set of causes for their brain issues. A one-size-fits-all drug approach can never work to solve the multifactorial brain disease we call dementia.

But Where Drugs Fail, Personalized Lifestyle Medicine Succeeds

When you have this much at stake, you need a professional familiar with the most up-to-date research in dementia. You need a comprehensive prevention strategy that targets the specific factors driving brain decline. Here’s what’s involved in stopping the brain’s decline into dementia:

  • Identify and eliminate factors harming the brain:
    • Toxins
    • Nutrient Deficits
    • Inflammation
    • Infections
    • Insulin Resistance
    • Glucose Toxicity
    • And More
  • Identify and incorporate factors that can grow brain cells and improve brain speed:
    • Diet
    • Specific Nutrients and Herbal Supplements
    • Physical Activity
    • Cognitive Learning Program
    • Stress Management
    • Sleep Optimization

Why You Shouldn’t Expect Your Doctor to Direct Your Brain Recovery Program

Physicians are highly stressed and short on time. They work within the medical model that only provides minimal amounts of time needed to identify a problem, write a prescription, and send a referral to a specialist. They don’t work with exercise or diets. They don’t prescribe nutrition supplements. They don’t have access to accepted protocols for brain recovery because these haven’t been written yet.

Medicare underpays physicians so that they are economically forced into providing disease care rather than providing good healthcare. This causes enormous amounts of stress and burnout for even the most caring of physicians. This is also why your family physician is generally not going to be familiar with the research that shows that at least 50 to 80 percent of people following a personalized medicine approach to brain health are able to IMPROVE their scores on cognitive tests. Since this research does not involve a drug that can be advertized and promoted, physicians are unlikely to read or hear about these advances for some time.

Our medical system spends hundreds of thousands of dollars on cancer and heart disease but offers nothing for the kind of preventive care that can save your brain and your life. Chances are that there will be at least a 5-10 year delay before the current research works its way into the medical office’s clinical care routines. By then, most of the people experiencing mild cognitive impairment this year will likely have progressed deep into dementia.

Why You Need a Dietitian Brain Specialist

It takes a good deal of time and quite a bit of testing that physicians are unfamiliar with in order to identify all the factors that might be driving your brain dysfunction. There are dozens of possible factors. This is why you need a specialist.

Schedule Today

What Is at Stake?

When you reach a state where your deficits start to be noticeable, you are likely in the stage called “Mild Cognitive Impairment, MCI”. It’s time to move into emergency mode. If your house is on fire, you don’t go shopping for a fire extinguisher. Likewise, if you recognize that your brain function is in decline, it should be a wake-up call that everything you and your family hold dear is now at stake. It is up to you to act quickly enough and with all the correct strategies to reverse your cognitive losses before it’s too late. Otherwise, your spouse, family, and lifelong friends stand to face your heartbreaking decline and your ever-increasing need for basic supervision and daily care. That nest egg you planned for a comfortable retirement now stands to be spent on assisted living homes and paid caregivers.

The Research Clearly Shows That a Personalized Approach Works

It is fortunate that the research is finally catching up to give us the proven therapies we need so that we don’t have to face the awful stress of the situation described above. A situation too many people are facing simply because they don’t have the right strategy. As a healthcare professional and registered dietitian nutritionist, my diet counseling, testing recommendations and supplement advice are based on the newest published research. The research shows that a personalized medicine approach clearly works for most individuals facing mild cognitive impairment. It’s a long process, and I’m here to help. Get started by scheduling today.