Heather Whitson
speaker
81 appearances
1 recordings
1 series
first heard Dec 2023
last heard Dec 2023
Heather Whitson’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.
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Appearances
Thank you for having me and thanks for covering this topic.
I'm requesting the song Don't You Forget About Me.
Uh, which is one of the things that I think uh matters most to patients and families living with Alzheimer's disease.
Yeah.
So this was I I have thought a lot about this the more that I work with neurologists because I think I there was some epiphany that I had about a decade ago when I realized that we didn't mean the same thing when we were saying Alzheimer's disease.
And this was, you know, a decade ago.
And and I realized that as a geriatrician, when I was talking about Alzheimer's disease, I was really talking
about I was picturing in my mind people that have dementia and and people that I treat with sometimes very advanced dementia.
My neurology colleagues, what they were picturing in their mind was plaques and tangles.
And almost seeing the person there, but seeing as if they could see inside their brain to the slides and the the plaques and the tangles.
And and the truth is I kind of think we were both right.
And it was a helpful epiphany to me to kind of knit those things together, but it was also helpful to realize that.
You know, so again, as a person whose whose mission now is to try to prevent and cure this disease, I think it's really important to think about the plaques and the tangles.
But I think what Jason said is also really important that the plaques and the tangles are the disease.
That caused the dementia, which is the thing that people really care about, and so.
I I understand the reason for defining it based on the biology and the pathology.
I also think that there are whole swaths of people, not just physicians, but also lots of patients and families who for many, many years weren't thinking plaques and tangles at all when you say the word Alzheimer's disease.
And we can't just ignore that that that that uh link.
Is not there in the minds of of a lot of people who are important stakeholders in this field.
a bad way or a good way?
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