Does exercise reduce the risk of Alzheimer’s disease?

Richard Isaacson, M.D.

Richard S. Isaacson, M.D. currently serves as Director of the Alzheimer’s Prevention Clinic, Weill Cornell Memory Disorders Program, and Director of the Neurology Residency Training Program at Weill Cornell Medical College/NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital. He previously served as Associate Professor of Clinical Neurology, Vice Chair of Education, and Education Director of the McKnight Brain Institute in the Department of Neurology at the University of Miami (UM) Miller School of Medicine. He completed his residency in Neurology at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center/Harvard Medical School, and his medical internship at Mount Sinai Medical Center in Miami Beach, FL. Prior to joining UM, he served as Associate Medical Director of the Wien Center for Alzheimer’s disease and Memory Disorders at Mount Sinai.

A graduate of the accelerated 6-year B.A./M.D. program at the University of Missouri – Kansas City School of Medicine, Dr. Isaacson now specializes exclusively in Alzheimer’s disease (AD) risk reduction and treatment, mild cognitive impairment due to AD and pre-clinical AD. His AD research focuses on nutrition and the implementation and longitudinal assessment of dietary interventions for AD management. Dr. Isaacson has a family history of AD, including his Uncle Bob (diagnosed while he was in high school) and his Dad’s Cousin (diagnosed six years ago) and passionately believes in a comprehensive, multi-modal approach toward both AD treatment and prevention. He is the author of two best-selling books geared for patients and caregivers, Alzheimer’s Treatment Alzheimer’s Prevention: A Patient & Family Guide (2012 Edition) and most recently, The Alzheimer’s Prevention & Treatment Diet.

Dr. Isaacson’s career in education spans undergraduate (student), graduate (resident/fellow), and continuing (faculty) medical education, as well as patient, caregiver and community education/outreach. His recent efforts have focused on the development of Alzheimer’s Universe (www.AlzU.org) a vast online educational portal on AD, with results published in the Journal of the Prevention of Alzheimer’s disease. He has chaired the AAN Undergraduate Education Subcommittee working group in dementia and received the AAN Education Research Grant for “Evaluating the effectiveness of Continuum: Dementia as a teaching tool for medical students” published in Neurology. He recently led a collaborative education and health information technology research initiative at Weill Cornell, Harvard, UM, U. Pennsylvania, U. Rochester published in Neurology. He is the author of numerous publications, his research in neurology and medical education has been presented at scientific meetings nationally and internationally, and was awarded the 2009 AAN A.B. Baker Teacher Recognition Award. He is also a member of the Alpha Omega Alpha Medical Honor Society. [weillcornell.org]