Key Points
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Retain Health software, study covered by CNN
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“Last Alzheimer’s Patient” also interviews Retain Health cofounder
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“This is the way to get people off the road to Alzheimer’s disease.”
A new CNN documentary (July 9, 2024) highlighted Retain Health’s software solution for reducing Alzheimer’s risk factors in its reporting about groundbreaking research into slowing and preventing Alzheimer’s disease.
Five years in the making, “The Last Alzheimer’s Patient,” is an hourlong investigation by CNN’s Emmy-winning chief medical correspondent Sanjay Gupta, who is also a brain surgeon.
Retain Cameo
In the documentary, Dr. Gupta watches a demonstration of the Retain Health software that’s being used in a National Institutes of Health-funded clinical trial and interviews Retain Health co-founder Richard Isaacson, a preventive neurologist who specializes in Alzheimer’s.
“The software does a risk assessment, does a memory test. It tells you what to do. In the future we’re going to add blood biomarkers,” Dr. Isaacson tells him. “This is the way to get people off the road to Alzheimer’s disease.”
Dr. Gupta, who has a family history of the disease, is also shown undergoing an assessment at Dr. Isaacson’s Florida clinic.
Good Company
Other prominent dementia experts featured include Dr. Miia Kivipelto, the scientific lead of the Worldwide FINGERS Network, who led the pioneering FINGER trial establishing that lifestyle impacts risk; Laura Baker, co-principal investigator of the U.S. POINTER study (a FINGER offshoot now underway); Maria Carrillo, the Alzheimer’s Association chief science officer; Dr. Ronald Peterson, director of the Mayo Clinic Alzheimer’s Disease Research Center, and Drs. Reisa Sperling and Dean Ornish, who have led related key prevention clinical trials.
Says Carrillo in the program, “We at the Alzheimer’s Association just don’t have that evidence to be able to go out to public health agencies and say, hey, this is something that works. Let’s do it for all. It’s just not for the masses yet, but that’s what we want, right?”
“But Dr. Isaacson and his team are working on fixing that as well,” Dr. Gupta says next, as Retain Health software is shown.
“Health Care”
“Preventing problems down the road is health care, instead of sick care,” he says. “Today, getting off the road to Alzheimer’s disease and other dementias is so much simpler than we previously thought. The decisions we make every day–to eat healthy, to move more, to learn new skills, and to spend time with loved ones–sounds easy, but the evidence is clear. It can, and it will, lead to better brain health.”
CNN’s coverage included:
- A resource box with links to a second NIH Retain Health study, which filled within 24 hours of the documentary airing
- A link to the RetainYourBrain website
- Dr. Gupta’s first-person essay about his preventive neurology exam with Dr. Isaacson: “One of the most personal and revealing experiences I have ever gone through.”
Writes Gupta in his essay: “To be clear, most of these tests aren’t part of routine care, and I struggle with the cost of it all. They can be expensive and probably wouldn’t be covered by a person’s insurance, especially if they aren’t showing symptoms of Alzheimer’s, dementia or mild cognitive impairment. That is why Richard is also working to make much of it available for free at home. Nearly all the cognitive testing could be available in the future through a free app.”