Lauren Miller Rogen on Facing a Parent’s Early-Onset Alzheimer’s Diagnosis

Episode Transcript

Dr. Nath:
Hi, Daniel.

Dr. Correa:
Buenas tardes Audrey. Who did you talk to this week?

Dr. Nath:
Oh goodness. So this week on The Brain & Life podcast from the American Academy of Neurology, I talked to someone famous from the movies. Daniel, did you ever watch Super Bad?

Dr. Nath:
Do you love movies as much as I do?

Dr. Correa:
I really enjoyed it. That movie actually was one of the first movies that really got me into Bill Hater. He was Officer Slater in Super Bad. Yeah, just so many hilarious characters.

Dr. Nath:
I'm still a fan of McLovin' to this day. In that movie, Scarlet was played by Lauren Miller Rogen, who is an actress and writer and producer in her own right, who happens to be married to Seth Rogen, who you may have heard of.

Dr. Nath:
Somebody you might have heard of. So she tells us that there's a whole other side to her, other than all the movies, which has been advocating for Alzheimer's disease. And basically back in her twenties, she started dealing with Alzheimer's in her own mom and what that was like to show up to support groups where most of the people were older adults, and she was in her twenties and how that felt and how isolating it felt. And now she goes out and gets people aware that you can be a young person and be dealing with caregiving. And what do you need to know? How do you navigate that process? Because it is so much. And she and Seth have started Hilarity for Charity, which is a really great organization. I know. I love-

Dr. Correa:
Perfect.

Dr. Nath:
Which really focuses on caregiving and helping give financial support to people who need respite and need care, because it could be so stressful.

Dr. Correa:
Yeah. It's affecting so many families. With Alzheimer's spreading throughout all of our population, it makes sense that we touch on the fact of how it impacts people at all different ages and families at all different stages.

Dr. Nath:
Absolutely. And especially if it's a child and a family that has the Alzheimer's gene, for example, that means looking at your own life. And she talks about how she tries to keep her brain as healthy as possible with de-stressing. She and Seth Rogan do pottery. I don't know if you knew, and she has really worked hard on getting good sleep. And she talks about tips from her own life about how she's gotten her own sleep better. It makes a huge difference.

Dr. Correa:
Oh, that's great, and we'll build on that next week. So we'll be starting a new episode format that we'll mix in where we'll share some of our own experiences and then discuss a brain health topic. And we'll be starting with sleep and its importance for brain health to follow this episode.

Dr. Nath:
Yes, can't wait.

Dr. Nath:
Welcome. Today, we are joined by actress, comedian screenwriter and director Lauren Miller Rogan. She co-wrote and produced For a Good Time Call, which is about her own experiences. Go check that out. And she's acted in numerous TV shows and movies, including Super Bad, which her husband, Seth Rogan wrote. Lauren has had a really impressive career, but behind all of that, there's another story that we're going to be talking about.

Dr. Nath:
Basically all of us inherent genes from our families, some are good and some are less good. And in Lauren's family, multiple family members have been struck with Alzheimer's disease, including her grandparents and her own mother. And since then, she has channeled her experiences and her family's experiences into her and her husband's advocacy work to promote awareness and resources for other people and families with Alzheimer's disease. And I think that is so awesome. Welcome to The Brain & Life podcast, Lauren Miller Rogen.

Lauren Miller Rogen:
Hello. Thank you. Thanks for having me.

Dr. Nath:
Thanks for being here. I just have so many questions for you. It sounds like, from what I've read, that you had a very close relationship with your mother, and I want to know, when did you first start to notice that something might be a little off? And were you in denial? I'm curious.

Lauren Miller Rogen:
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Dr. Nath:
Okay. I can see that.

Lauren Miller Rogen:
Both of my mom's parents had dementia. My grandfather was diagnosed with Alzheimer's, I think, I don't know it was before I was born or when I was very, very young, and he passed away when I was 12. And then a couple years after that, my grandmother, my mom's mom, started showing signs of dementia as well. And her diagnosis flip flopped between Alzheimer's and Parkinson's and just dementia. So I was familiar with it, unfortunately, and at my college graduation, my mom repeated a story a couple times throughout the weekend and I just knew. If you didn't have familiarity with Alzheimer's or dementia, I don't know if you would pick it up, but it was just-

Dr. Nath:
But you did.

Lauren Miller Rogen:
A very specific way.

Dr. Nath:
You knew.

Lauren Miller Rogen:
Yeah. And was terrible. And I was totally in denial. And didn't say anything to anyone about it for about a year and a half.

Dr. Nath:
Including her?

Lauren Miller Rogen:
Oh yeah. Oh definitely not her. She would be the last person I would've brought it up with.

Dr. Nath:
Wow. Okay.

Lauren Miller Rogen:
So she would all the time, and it made me so frustrated was she would constantly be like "When I get Alzheimer's, when I get Alzheimer's," this was she was younger, and I would be like, "Stop saying that. I would never say that." She wasn't saying it like, "When I get Alzheimer's..."

Dr. Nath:
No, she knew the reality.

Lauren Miller Rogen:
So, no, I did not say anything to her. It was about a year and a half later when I was living in LA at that time, and I'd started dating my husband and my parents came out for a visit. And that weekend also became more clear. And after I dropped them off at the airport, I came back to his apartment and it was the first time I said it out loud that I was scared that this was happening, and it was the first time I cried about it and just acknowledged it. But of course, my husband, who did not have any relatives with Alzheimer's had no familiarity. He was like, "What do you mean? She seemed fine." I was like, "You don't know her."

Dr. Nath:
Oh gosh.

Lauren Miller Rogen:
You're first meeting her. You don't know the difference.

Dr. Nath:
Oh man. Because you had all this experience already, unfortunately.

Lauren Miller Rogen:
Yeah. I think it really takes a really intimate relationship to notice those really early changes.

Dr. Nath:
Both to know what the changes look like and to know that person well enough to know that's different for them, which, to be fair, is not obvious a lot of times to physicians, for example. Sometimes we're just meeting someone for the first time.

Lauren Miller Rogen:
Absolutely.

Dr. Nath:
We need the family members to be like, "Hey, hold up. We got to tell you something. Here's what is really going on." Because otherwise it's not obvious from meeting someone within 10 minutes at all.

Lauren Miller Rogen:
Yeah. Well the first weight that is put on a caregiver is properly communicating those changes to a physician, is the first task. The first of a cajillion million tasks that the caregivers go through.

Dr. Nath:
The adventure you never asked for.

Lauren Miller Rogen:
Yeah. Yeah.

Dr. Nath:
So actually tell us a little about that. So you finally broke down, admitted it to yourself and well, I guess now your husband. So what was the process like? Because I know sometimes this can be really overwhelming for people and this is why I want to talk about it. Like okay, I think something's going on. I need to make an appointment. Where do I start? How did that go for you?

Lauren Miller Rogen:
Well, my dad was, whatever you want to say, a very committed husband. I also was afraid to say something to him for a while, but I did eventually. And I honestly don't remember the first time I said something him. So can't really share that memory. But eventually when I started saying something to him about it, he was also in denial about it. And I remember I said to him, because I would go home. I was living in LA. They lived in Florida at the time, and I would go every couple months or whatever it was. I said to him, "It's like you know how if you see a baby every single day, you don't notice them growing, but if you see a baby once, and then six months later, you see that baby, you're like, that's so big."

Dr. Nath:
It's a huge change. Exactly.

Lauren Miller Rogen:
You're so large. And so that's how I would see my mom's decline into dementia, which was, I would see it, and then three months later I would fly back in there, and I'd be like, "Oh God, it's worse now." But he wasn't noticing it. So my brother and I were saying things to my dad and eventually he found a doctor at USF in Tampa, Amanda Smith, who was amazing and eventually was the right doctor for them. Just was someone that listened and was able to be like, "Yeah, this is happening, and let's help do some guidance here and get into some groups and yada yada."

Lauren Miller Rogen:
So my dad was the one on the front lines of all of that and was very protective of his role as a caregiver, really was so adamant about not burdening me and my brother with it, which is the opposite of course, of what we wanted.

Dr. Nath:
You want the information, right? Yeah.

Lauren Miller Rogen:
But that conversation evolved when it really needed to, but he was really dedicated to driving the bus.

Dr. Nath:
And then also being your parents and trying to protect her. It's just all these things that you navigate with caregiving later in life once you are a kid, but you become a grown up and having these conversations that you never thought you were going to have with your parent.

Lauren Miller Rogen:
But I was 24, and so I wasn't expecting to have those conversations at that age while I was starting my career and starting a relationship and living across the country for the first time, all that stuff.

Dr. Nath:
All that coming of age stuff, and-

Lauren Miller Rogen:
My mom has a terminal disease, yeah.

Dr. Nath:
Which you were very well acquainted with. That's the thing.

Lauren Miller Rogen:
Yeah. And that also, I wasn't blind to what was in the future for us and what my grandmother had just gone through was pretty rough. She spent the last year of her life in a bed, not talking and walking or being able to feed herself. And I had no idea that my mom would spend the last five years of her life like that at the time, but I was certainly afraid it would be a year. Had no idea it would be five. But anyway.

Dr. Nath:
I would like to know in that time, do you know or did your dad share with you, how did he take care of himself? Did you guys have respite care by any chance? Nurses that would come in?

Lauren Miller Rogen:
Early on, no. First, she, herself was in denial for quite a while and refused to have help, even though it was clearly needed. And she was really paranoid and constantly, "You guys are going to put me away somewhere. And I know you're having these conversations behind my back." And eventually she got past that point where literally after Thanksgiving dinner, it was me and my husband and his parents, and we had talked to my brother about it, obviously, that we were going to be having this conversation. He wasn't able to be with us. And really literally just sat down on the couch and were like, "This cannot go on any longer. Seems like it's affecting you almost faster than it's affecting her."

Lauren Miller Rogen:
My therapist at the time who I spoke to a lot about my frustration in that my dad wouldn't let us be part of this process said, "Look, you need to make him understand that if he wants to care for her, that is fine. That is beautiful. That is wonderful. We, his children are going to care for him."

Dr. Nath:
Okay. There we go.

Lauren Miller Rogen:
And I think that really clicked for him. I think he refused to acknowledge how this was hurting us, watching him deal with this. And once he acknowledged that we were feeling pain also because of the situation, he wanted to stop us feeling pain. And therefore, he allowed us to get caregivers to come in. And so we did, and at first was a few hours at a time. And then shortly after that, it just became clear that they were in Florida, and they were pretty alone. A lot of their friends had unfortunately fallen away when my mom became more advanced. They had a few amazing friends that stuck by, but not many.

Lauren Miller Rogen:
And so they were essentially alone. And so they moved to be close to us in LA, which was great. And so we had an amazing situation and they lived in a duplex and my dad was on one side and my mom was on the other with a full-time caregiver, which was amazing. And there were a few different women who rotated and took care of her for seven or eight years. And that was a really amazing situation, but it was really unique that we could afford something like that. That's not a reality that most people can afford. We're incredibly fortunate. That was a big inspiration for us with HFC and our grant program, which we can get to.

Dr. Nath:
Yeah. Tell me, so HFC, Hilarity for Charity. So tell me about it, and I would love to hear about that too, because there are so many socioeconomic barriers to care and respite and caregiving, and I'm so glad you brought that up, because we do see this all the time. Tell me about Hilarity for Charity.

Lauren Miller Rogen:
So my mom early on was like, "Tell no one. You can't tell anyone. I don't want anyone to know." Blah, blah, blah. But eventually she became more advanced, and I was like, as you touched on, I'm creative, I'm a storyteller, I'm a share bear. I cannot keep this stuff in. And so eventually started telling a few friends about it and eventually went to a few Alzheimer's cessation walks, and Seth came with me and at this point, he was getting some more notoriety. So when he showed up at the walk, they were like, "What is this guy doing here?"

Lauren Miller Rogen:
And so we got more involved with the Alzheimer's Association and just sharing our story. We did a few different talk show, news, health programs, that thing. And just sharing our story and slowly started hearing from people, other young people, and I really thought that I was quite alone at the time. And I wasn't connecting with other young people and just felt like I'm just not equipped at this age to be dealing with this.

Lauren Miller Rogen:
And anyway, so started talking about it more and eventually a friend of ours came to me and was like, "Let's throw a fundraiser for Alzheimer's. Let's do a variety show, and it'll be a comedy show." And I was like, "Absolutely not." And then he talked me into it over a period of few weeks. I think the mission started becoming more and more clear over time. It wasn't just like, boom, let's do this thing. It was, let's throw an event. Okay. We have this money. How do we want to spend this money? Okay, let's put that first money into research into a younger onset trial or whatever. I don't know. Put it toward that at that point.

Lauren Miller Rogen:
But then we started raising more money and more money. And my family was faced with this situation where my mom needed round the clock care and we were able to afford it. I was in a support group for young people at the time. I can't remember if we were under 30 or under 35 or whatever it was, but it was all young people, which was really important to me. There were people in support groups who were not in the same financial situation that we were in, who were going to whatever extreme measures they had to care for their loved ones during the day while they were at work or their parents were at work or whatever it was. And so early on, it was just like, let's spend this money that we're raising to help people today. And so that's when we started doing support groups. We did online support groups long before the pandemic.

Dr. Nath:
Oh, shoot. Good for you!

Lauren Miller Rogen:
Started our online support groups in 2015 using Google Hangouts.

Dr. Nath:
Oh wow.

Lauren Miller Rogen:
Because again, for me, it was really important to make it accessible, be grouped with people who were in similar situations, because that was really important to me. And then we formed our partnership with Homestead Senior Care, who is the organization that provides our respite care and started this amazing program and advertise it a little bit, honestly, but we don't really advertise it because we don't have the money to fund all the applications that we get. And we have done everything we can. I think we're close to 400,000 hours at this point over these past few years.

Dr. Nath:
Roughly, how does the program work?

Lauren Miller Rogen:
So individuals can go on the website, and they fill out an application that really has a lot of prompts that really help to paint a picture of the care situation of the loved one with dementia. Is there external care? Does your loved one go to daycare? What is your day like? It really goes in depth. We have a committee of people who read the applications every month. I've read them for years. I took a break I guess about two years ago, because it's emotional reading these stories.

Dr. Nath:
Oh gosh, I can imagine.

Lauren Miller Rogen:
Because they're real, and they're honest, and they're often people in pretty difficult situations who are asking for this help. We grade them mathematically. So it's not just emotional. There is a science to it, but that's how it works. And we've helped a lot of people and met people out in the world who are like, "I'm here because I have one of your grants." Seth was on a flight once and this woman was like, "I'm taking my first trip in three years because my mom is home with a home and sick caregiver because of one of your grants."

Dr. Nath:
Wow. Yeah. People don't talk about this.

Dr. Nath:
And I think some of it is family dynamics and some of it is various cultures and shame and various cultures as well where it's this unspoken situation that affects tons of families. So if there's even one person listening to this that thinks, wow, I've been going through this. I'm young. Okay. I guess I'm not the only one. That is awesome.

Lauren Miller Rogen:
Yeah. Yeah. That's the thing is we're not alone in this. Unfortunately we're not alone in this, but also fortunately, we're not alone in this. And there are a lot of people who want to connect, want to share things. There's so many people on TikTok and Instagram, young people who are caregivers who are sharing tips. And that's amazing. I didn't have that when I was 25. Amazing. There are a lot of resources out there these days, which is really lovely.

Dr. Nath:
I'm curious, for you, have all this knowledge about these dementias and this genetics and you've seen this first hand, because a lot of people have not grown up with these things. How is it that you are able to focus on your every day and focus on the present and what helps you focus on the present and not think so much about your own future and the million what ifs? What helps you?

Lauren Miller Rogen:
Honestly, I have found a lot of hope in science and research and doing deep dives into my own genetics, knowing what my own risk factors are, taking steps to modify those risk factors.

Dr. Nath:
There are some modifiable risk factors. So that's worth talking about. And what are you talking about in terms of your own life? What of have you done?

Lauren Miller Rogen:
I work with a few different doctors who specialize in brain health and longevity. And again, we've done this deep dive. And so I take certain supplements that are specifically potentially helpful to some of my genes that I have. I have done the things that everyone should do, which is I really worked on my sleep. I modified a lot of things in my sleep routine, and now I'm an excellent sleeper. I feel like people are like, how could I change the way I sleep? And honestly, there are truly things, and I'll just sidebar to say that the first thing you should do is track your sleep.

Lauren Miller Rogen:
Whether you're wearing an Apple Watch or I wear this Oura Ring, we have a Whoop Band. There are a number of devices out there that can track your sleep. So you need to know how you're sleeping, but then I think the first step is having a consistent bedtime. People really struggle with that, but just get it as consistent, within an hour. It's not like you have to be in bed by 10:15. If you're five minutes late, you get stressed. I go to bed between 10 and 11. Then there's the slightly more specific things. I bought a cooling pad for my bed, that really changed everything. I was a hot, sweaty mess every night. You're not ready for this, between 20 and 30 minutes of deep sleep a night. That is not good.

Dr. Nath:
Yikes. So what did you feel like in the mornings?

Lauren Miller Rogen:
Terrible. I was tired all day, every day, all the time, and I woke up sweaty and gross and it was awful. And so I got this cooling pad for my bed. That really changed things. I started wearing an eye mask all night.

Dr. Nath:
Absolutely. Getting that light out.

Lauren Miller Rogen:
I listen to white noise, and I have a weighted blanket. And the combination, it was the cooling pad and then the weighted blanket. Now I get an average of two and a half hours of deep sleep every night.

Dr. Nath:
The deep part. That's a great improvement.

Dr. Nath:
That's important to talk about. Some things are modifiable.

Lauren Miller Rogen:
Totally modifiable and sleep is one of the best things you could do for your brain health. My doctor always says, "When you're sleeping is the time your brain takes out the trash, and it's consolidating your memories, and you're building, you're growing." It's so important.

Dr. Nath:
For our listeners, before we let you go, how can they find Hilarity for Charity online? Or how do you recommend that they start looking for you guys?

Lauren Miller Rogen:
We are all over the place on the inter webs. Of course, we have a website. We are hfc.org. Of course, we're on Instagram. We're on TikTok. We're on Twitter. We are HFC. We share lots of good brain health tips. Of course, if you're a caregiver and need support, we have a lot of tools and resources, a lot of events frequently for caregivers. We are out there, just hit us up and you can send an email, and if you're looking for help, we'll try to help. And we just don't want people to feel alone, and we want people to feel empowered in this situation. So that's what we try to do.

Dr. Nath:
That's an incredible way to give back. So thank you so much for telling us your mom's story and your family's story and telling us about the work that you're doing. That's incredible.

Lauren Miller Rogen:
Thanks for having me. I'm happy to share it and just want people to not feel alone.

Dr. Correa:
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Dr. Nath:
To purchase your book today, visit brainandlife.org/books.

Dr. Nath:
To learn more about Alzheimer's disease, I'm catching up with Dr. Irina Skylar Scott, who is a board certified, fellowship trained, cognitive and behavioral neurologist and clinical assistant professor at Stanford University. She's involved in clinical trials for Alzheimer's disease and specifically how social and intellectual engagement can affect cognition.

Dr. Nath:
Thank you for joining us. So first off for our listeners, can you give us a broad overview of what do we mean when we say Alzheimer's disease?

Dr. Irina Skylar Scott:
The first is the clinical picture, so that refers to both cognitive and behavioral symptoms. Classically ,memory impairment is a prominent part of that and other cognitive domains can be affected too, things like language, visual spatial function, what we call executive function, which is your ability to organize, plan and problem solve and behavioral aspects. So things like depression, anxiety, less motivation, and down the road, we see things like paranoid thinking or agitation. I get a history from the patient and family.

Dr. Irina Skylar Scott:
So it's gradual and onset and often progressive. So we see that it worsens over time. And then there's a exam that I do that's also part of the clinical picture where I evaluate how somebody's doing cognitively. And then the third piece of it is what we call the neuropathological piece. So in Alzheimer's disease, there are two proteins that accumulate, which are called amyloid and tau, and you need both to really call it Alzheimer's disease, although we don't check for those in every single patient.

Dr. Irina Skylar Scott:
What we do often check for is brain imaging. So either an MRI scan or a CT, and what we're looking for is brain shrinkage in characteristic areas of the brain, typically the back of the brain, the partial lobes and the sides of the brain, the temporal lobes. So that combination, the clinical picture and the neuropathological picture taken together from what we call the clinical pathological diagnosis of Alzheimer's disease.

Dr. Nath:
Thank you for going over that. So essentially, it sounds like that there's this build up of proteins that can affect brain function in different ways, including memory, including personality and different things. But at the same time, it sounds like it's not just the protein buildup that can absolutely predict exactly what happens with a person, that there can be different factors in how one person may have a more severe course than another person.

Dr. Nath:
What have you noticed with your own patients and your own research about what people can do with their own health and their own brain activity and daily function that could potentially affect how their Alzheimer's goes?

Dr. Irina Skylar Scott:
That's a really good question, because there are a lot of factors that can affect the age of onset of the disease if you are going to get it, or if you ever get it. Part of that is what we call educational attainment. So how many years of education you have or occupational attainment, and that can affect what we call your cognitive reserve, your ability to fight back when you become vulnerable to the effects of Alzheimer's disease. But there are a lot of other factors, a lot of lifestyle activities that you can do to proactively mitigate your risk.

Dr. Irina Skylar Scott:
So I like to talk about four important factors. One is intellectual engagement, so use it or lose it is very true when it comes to the brain. So you need to do things that challenge you. So for some people, that's going to be crossword puzzles. For some people, it's going to be picking up a language they used to learn about and try getting some new vocabulary in. For somebody else, that's going to be learning new songs on an instrument. But it's whatever interests you, but also challenges you. You find it a challenge, but not so hard that you're giving up on it. So that's the first piece, intellectual engagement.

Dr. Irina Skylar Scott:
The second piece is social engagement. So there's a lot of good evidence to suggest that you need to be social with your friends and family. A lot of times when people start to develop some cognitive impairment, they'll isolate themselves because they feel embarrassed. The third piece is exercise. We recommend a minimum of 30 minutes a day, five times a week. If you can do more, even better, but start there if you can. Moderate intensity aerobic exercise is best. So that means you can talk to someone while you're doing it, but it's a little hard. You're struggling a little to talk to people.

Dr. Irina Skylar Scott:
And then the fourth and final piece is your diet. So the diet that's been shown to be the best for cognition is called the Mediterranean diet. If you're going to eat meat, then lean meat. So white meat, chicken, fish, that kind of thing. A lot of vegetables, a lot of fruits, beans are great. Nuts are great. Using olive oils instead of other oils and avoiding processed foods to the extent that you can. So that's what we mean when we say Mediterranean diet.

Dr. Nath:
I'm curious about that. It sounds like a nice diet, and I try to eat those foods anyway. What do you think it is about it? Why do you think that has an effect on cognition?

Dr. Irina Skylar Scott:
I don't think we fully know. I think a lot of the evidence comes with identifying that people in Mediterranean zones who have been on that diet are less likely to develop Alzheimer's, or if they develop it, they develop it a little later down the road. I would also say that a diet that's not Mediterranean, so for example, lots of red meats or lots of junk food, lots of processed food can increase your cardiovascular risk and your risk of getting cerebrovascular disease. And so it's just one more rock in a sea of obstacles that increases your likelihood of being cognitively impaired. So the key is to really keep your blood vessels healthy and open and getting blood flow to your brain so that you're not creating one more obstacle to your cognition.

Dr. Nath:
Can you tell us a little bit about some of the clinical trials you're working on?

Dr. Irina Skylar Scott:
I can, yeah. I think what might excite the listeners is knowing that there are some preclinical Alzheimer's disease trials in the pipeline. So there have been some failures in the field for anti amyloid antibodies. So drugs that target this amyloid protein that accumulates in the brain, and many of those trials haven't worked.

Dr. Irina Skylar Scott:
So one theory in the field is maybe haven't started early enough. Maybe we need to start in people who have amyloid in their brain, but don't have symptoms yet, and see if we give them the therapies, and see if there's any benefit in terms of decreasing the likelihood of progression to cognitive impairment. And so those trials are ongoing. Stay tuned. If you have me back, I'll let you know in a couple years how those go. I think the field is expanding and novel therapeutics, novel mechanisms where whether it's repurposing diabetes drugs to try and treat Alzheimer's or looking at anti-inflammatory drugs, trying to address the immune system that might be playing a role in Alzheimer's disease. So the scope of targets is really expanding right now, and I think that's very exciting too.

Dr. Nath:
Is there anything you would like any listeners to know who may have been diagnosed with Alzheimer's recently themselves or a family member?

Dr. Irina Skylar Scott:
Yes. I would say a few things. Number one, I have so much admiration for what patients and families are going through. They're juggling a lot of plates and first, I just want to acknowledge what they're going through, because it can be a real challenge. The second thing is oftentimes patients and family members feel very alone, but I would say lean on your community to the extent that you can. And that can include community resources, that can include friends and family members. I think self care is really important so that you avoid burnout. And that goes for both patients and families. So doing whatever it is that renews you.

Dr. Irina Skylar Scott:
Sometimes people will find help in joining a support group or some patients and families will find meaning in doing, being as proactive as they can be, and then get the care that you need, the medical care. I admire the patients and families that come into my clinic, because I see what they're going through, and it can be an everyday struggle, but we're all here for you.

Dr. Nath:
Thank you so much for joining us and telling us some very actionable tips that I can start doing today too. So thank you.

Dr. Correa:
Thank you for joining us today on The Brain & Life podcast. Follow and subscribe to this podcast so you don't miss our weekly episode. You can also sign up to receive The Brain and Life magazine for free at brainandlife.org.

Dr. Nath:
Also for each episode, you can find out how to connect with us and our guests along with great resources in the show notes. You can also reach out by email at BLpodcast@brainandlife.org.

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Dr. Nath:
Special thanks to The Brain & Life team, including...

Dr. Correa:
Nicole Lussier, our public engagement program manager and Andrea Weiss, our executive editor for education and news publications.

Dr. Nath:
We are your hosts.

Dr. Correa:
Daniel Correa, joining you from New York City and online at Neuro, Dr. Correa.

Dr. Nath:
And Audrey Nath, beaming in from Texas and on Twitter at Audrey Nath, MD. PhD.

Dr. Correa:
Thank you to our community members that trust us with their health and everyone living with neurologic conditions. We hope together we can take steps to better brain health and each thrive with our own abilities every day,

Dr. Nath:
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Dr. Correa:
We really appreciate it. If you can give us five stars and leave a review.

Dr. Nath:
Thank you.

Dr. Correa:
This helps others find The Brain & Life podcast.