Dementia Research Advancing Rapidly

(KNSI) — Saint Cloud’s Central Minnesota Dementia Resource Center is helping improve awareness of recent breakthroughs in treating the disease. Dr. Pat Zook says neurologists alone cannot treat memory loss as the wait time to see them for Alzheimer’s disease and related illness is up to five months. However, primary physicians are often unaware of the changes in approved standards of care, says Zook.

“Most of what we know about dementia has been learned in the last 15 years. And so, doctors and other clinicians who graduated from their training before that haven’t heard about much of what’s new in dementia.”

Zook is adopting the Wisconsin model, creating a “center of excellence” to assure dementia care is a top priority in the medical community locally. The organization operates on donations and grants alone, and even if Medicare does agree to pay for services rendered at the center, its reimbursement rates are about a quarter of what is needed. Zook says this hurt a similar center that existed in Saint Cloud previously.

Catching dementia early is key to keeping it in check. Zook says that a proper diet low in sugars and processed carbs can play a key role in creating a regimen to reverse the disease.

“According to Dr. Dale Bredesen who’s our hero, we’re kind of following his protocol — He’s in California. He has a book, just released, “First Survivors of Alzheimer’s.” He’s written about a thousand people that he’s done a similar program [with], where people have actually improved their symptoms. Substantially enough that accountants and attorneys can actually go back to work.”

The center’s program to coordinate care is known as D-CAN, the Dementia Community Action Network. You can learn more about it here.

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