A proponent of Dr. Dale Bredesen’s protocol for slowing and reversing cognitive decline in people with Alzheimer’s, Dr. Heather Sandison has successfully applied these methods to patients in her Solcere Clinic in Encinitas California and has launched a first-in-the-world assisted living facility for Alzheimer’s patients. The goal of Marama, as it’s called, is not only to slow the progression of the disease, but to reverse it, allowing patients to return to independent living. It’s a bold experiment that Dr. Sandison believes can serve as a model to transform the way traditional nursing facilities treat Alzheimer‘s.

Contrary to long-established beliefs that there was nothing that could be done for Alzheimer’s patients, mainstream medicine is just beginning to acknowledge that the disease cannot be reduced to a single factor like the build-up of beta-amyloid plaque. Rather, it is the result of a complex of factors that contribute to its progression, things like inflammation, toxins, infections, hormones, diet, exercise, and sleep, each of which needs to be treated. Dr. Sandison’s holistic, functional medicine approach to Alzheimer’s monitors and addresses each of these factors and the results confirm the potential for reversing cognitive decline.

Marama, her residential care facility for the elderly, offers an immersive experience in the Bredesen Protocol. Patients of hers who have followed the protocol have markedly improved, something that can be measured in their Montreal Cognitive Assessment (MoCA) scores. The hope is that success at Marama will inspire other assisted living facilities to offer similar programs and end the lie that there is nothing that can be done but palliative care.  

Dr. Sandison’s ultimate goal is to make places like Marama obsolete through widespread adoption of these protocols. She offers an “At Home Caregiver Training Course” and has a vetted list of health care coaches trained in the Bredesen protocol. Ideally, classes would be offered to people as they reach retirement age or earlier when the chances of preventing or reversing Alzheimer’s is greater. Many of the patients who come to her small clinic are at a late stage of the disease, but even these patients have shown marked improvement.

Dr. Sandison also believes that the Bredesen Protocol is compatible and complementary to anti-aging approaches that focus on Alzheimer’s as an age-related disease.  In clinical trials she is running and in the experiences of patients at Marama, Dr. Sandison offers hope to millions of people with Alzheimer’s that there is something that can be done and that a return to independent living is a proven possibility.