Richard S. Isaacson

Director of Brain Health

Dr. Richard S. Isaacson is a renowned neurologist with a focus on the treatment and prevention of Alzheimer’s disease. He is the Founder and Former Director of the Alzheimer’s Prevention Clinic, a first-of-its-kind in the world, at Weill Cornell Medicine & NewYork Presbyterian, where he was also Assistant Dean of Faculty Development and Associate Professor of Neurology.

Dr. Isaacson remains on faculty as an Adjunct Associate Professor of Neurology at Weill Cornell and comes to Atria from Florida Atlantic University Schmidt College of Medicine, where he most recently served as Director of the Center for Brain Health.

On his decision to join Atria, he says he was drawn to work in a medical environment where being forward-thinking is encouraged rather than frowned upon. “This approach often goes against the traditional grain in medical care, which is typically informed by practice guidelines that are often outdated soon after being published,” he says. “At Atria, we have the time and personnel to have multidisciplinary care discussions about each and every patient and family we see.”

Dr. Isaacson began his academic career in an accelerated six-year program at the University of Missouri-Kansas City School of Medicine, where he earned his Bachelor of Liberal Arts at age 19 and his medical degree at the age of 23. He cites a family history of Alzheimer’s—as well as his older brother, also a neurologist—as early inspiration for his focus on the disease.

“Our research strives to go beyond ‘thinking outside the box’ and instead to ‘making the box bigger,’” says Dr. Isaacson. “This is the only way to shift the paradigm from sick care to well care before disease pathology becomes resistant to treatment.”

There is a saying among Alzheimer’s experts that to know one person with the disease is to, well, know one person with the disease—because it presents so distinctively in different people. To address this, Dr. Isaacson has pioneered methods using a precision-medicine approach to Alzheimer’s risk reduction in his own practice, and he served as Principal Investigator for the Alzheimer’s Prevention Clinic’s “Comparative Effectiveness Dementia & Alzheimer’s Registry” (CEDAR), a study that aims to uncover evidence that informs and leads to better, more precision-driven care.

Prior to his work at Weill Cornell, Dr. Isaacson was Associate Professor of Clinical Neurology and Vice Chair for Education at the University of Miami 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.

In order to address his own risk for Alzheimer’s, he has made several adjustments to his lifestyle. “The totality of the evidence is now overwhelming,” he says. “I believe, based on the research available, that preventative lifestyle changes and individualized care based on emerging principles of precision medicine can meaningfully reduce risk—and can also benefit overall health.”

Credentials

Founder & Former Director
Alzheimer’s Prevention Clinic, Weill Cornell Memory Disorders Program
Adjunct Associate Professor of Neurology
NewYork Presbyterian / Weill Cornell Medical Center
Former Assistant Dean of Faculty Development
NewYork Presbyterian / Weill Cornell Medical Center
Creator & Medical and Scientific Development Lead
Alzheimer’s Universe
Former Director
Neurology Residency Program, Weill Cornell Medicine
Former Education Director
The McKnight Brain Institute, University of Miami Miller School of Medicine
Former Associate Professor of Clinical Neurology
University of Miami Miller School of Medicine
Former Vice Chair of Education
University of Miami Miller School of Medicine
Former Neurology Residency Program Director
University of Miami Miller School of Medicine
Former Director
Center for Brain Health, Florida Atlantic University