My Mom’s Brain Autopsy: A Conversation with Her UCSF Neurologists
About this episode
The episode discusses the findings from a brain autopsy of Alvera Kan, revealing multiple types of dementia and the importance of accurate diagnosis.
After Deborah Kan’s mother, Alvera Kan, died in December of last year, the family donated her brain to UCSF to better understand what type of dementia she had. The answer came back with not just one diagnosis, but three different types of dementia: Alzheimer’s disease, vascular dementia, and LATE. Kan and her sister, Susan Whitaker, are joined by Dr. Bruce Miller, director of the UCSF Edward and Pearl Fein Memory and Aging Center, and Dr. David Soleimani-Meigooni, a neurologist at UCSF’s Memory and Aging Center and assistant professor focused on precision diagnosis in Alzheimer’s and related neurodegenerative diseases. Miller’s work has helped shape how clinicians identify and distinguish different forms of dementia, including frontotemporal dementia, while Soleimani-Meigooni’s clinical and research work includes using imaging and biomarkers to better understand amyloid, tau and other drivers of cognitive decline.In this conversation with Kan and Whitaker, Miller and Soleimani-Meigooni discuss how dementia diagnosis can remain uncertain during life and how an autopsy can reveal multiple diseases. They underscores how common mixed dementias are, why symptoms such as getting lost…
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