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FAQs

What is cognitive decline?

Cognitive decline is a gradual reduction in your ability to think, remember and process information. A minor gradual loss in mental acuity is expected with age, but we’ve designed a program to counteract this aging process and increase your chances of aging with a stronger and sharper brain.

What is brain fitness?

Your brain is an organ that needs to be maintained and kept in top condition. Just as you can take small steps on a daily basis to keep your heart healthy and strong, you also can take small steps on a daily basis to keep your brain healthy and strong. Your brain fitness refers to your brain’s capacity to perform at its peak.

What is included in the program?

If you are a candidate for our 3-month Brain Fitness Program, your treatment may follow this outline:

For more information on the program and our other neurology services, please look at the links under the Services tab.

How long does the program take?

For patients who want to gain maximal brain performance, we recommend the Brain Fitness Program. This program takes three months and requires weekly visits to our center. For those who have less time or have a lesser need to function at peak performance, the “mini” Brain Fitness Program may be suitable. This program consists of four 1-hour sessions that can be administered over a 4-week program. We also offer a flexible treatment plan for individuals who have unique circumstances or expectations. This plan may consist of intensive daily training for one to three weeks. All patients are monitored every six to 12 months to make sure they maintain their newly gained higher brain functions.

How much does the program cost?

Unlike less rigorous brain fitness programs, NeurExpand diagnoses and treats the medical contributors to cognitive impairment, including dementia and Alzheimer’s disease. As such, our services are covered many insurance plans.

The cost of the program varies, depending on the complexity of initial evaluation and the length of the treatment protocol. If you want to check whether we accept your insurance, please contact us.

How do I know if the program will help me?

More than 90 percent of our patients experience a noticeable increase in their memory, mood, and/or attention. Even patients who have Alzheimer’s disease may be able to improve their functional ability even if their short-term memory does not improve; however, all patients are different and individual results may vary.

Even if you’re not experiencing memory lapses today, the program can enhance your memory and concentration so that you can perform at a higher level. Most of our patients learn how to memorize lists of items and apply this methodology to other areas of their work and life. In addition to immediate improvements, we help you increase your “brain fitness” in order to strengthen your resistance to Alzheimer’s disease and dementia in the future.

Do individuals in your program experience an increase in the size of their brains?

Several recent research studies, summarized in Dr. Fotuhi’s review article in Nature’s Neurology journal, have demonstrated that certain factors can increase the size of the brain, especially the hippocampus-the part of the brain most tied to memory. At NeurExpand Brain Center, we have developed a program that replicates the results of these recent studies to grow the size of your hippocampus and improve your overall brain health. Past patients have experienced a growth in the size of their hippocampus that ranges from one percent to eight percent, which is equivalent to being two to 16 years younger.

How do you know if memory loss is the onset of dementia or Alzheimer’s disease?

Memory loss can be the manifestation of a dozen different medical conditions such as attention deficit disorder, vitamin deficiency, migraine, concussion, insomnia, sleep apnea, chronic fatigue syndrome, or anemia. As a part of your baseline evaluation, you will undergo a full brain fitness assessment in order to establish the specific causes for memory loss in YOUR brain. This allows us to then tailor a specific treatment plan to address and treat the particular factors that have impacted your memory and brain performance.

What if I have a family history of dementia?

Individuals with family members who developed Alzheimer’s disease in their 50’s or 60’s are at an increased risk of developing early-onset Alzheimer’s disease. However, those with family members who become demented in their eighties or nineties only have a mild increase in their chances of developing late-onset Alzheimer’s.

Does the program help people with Alzheimer’s disease?

Our program is primarily designed for individuals suffering with age-related mild to moderate cognitive impairment. Although our program cannot cure or guarantee prevention of Alzheimer’s disease, we can help patients improve their cognitive function and increase their chances of aging with a healthy brain.

Do you put all your patients through the program?

Not all our patients need an intensive three-month program. The baseline brain fitness evaluation, combined with results from a set of medical tests, determine the duration and intensity of your treatment protocol. We also treat patients with other neurological problems, ranging from migraines to Parkinson’s Disease.

Who will be treating me?

NeurExpand only hires highly skilled and experienced health care professionals with the advanced training critical to the success of multidisciplinary treatment protocols.

All neurologists are selected based on their credentials and clinical background and trained by Dr. Fotuhi.

There are a multitude of brain health and fitness resources now: online, mobile, books, etc. If I do those, won’t my memory and cognitive abilities improve?

Online programs, books, and mobile apps only provide fragmented benefits for patients with memory loss because they fail to address the specific causes of memory loss in individual patients. For example, if you have severe sleep apnea, you will need prompt intervention to improve your breathing during sleep. Doing online computer games offers you only a fractional benefit in the long term. It will not reduce your high risk for stroke and late life dementia. At our center, we tailor a personalized Brain Fitness Program that is unique to you and highly effective in improving brain health now, with benefits that last well into the future.




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