UPFRONT
HE ALTH CARE // BY LINDA F E AGLER
Legacy of Love Kemper House pushes back against cognitive loss.
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8 COMMUNITY LEADER | FEBRUARY 2022
assessment with Kemper to take a look Susan, a at what could be happening right now patient, uses metabolically that could be driving wearable the disease’s progress. We’ll give you a tech during highly personalized plan to push back skills and prevent, halt or reverse cognitive building. decline.” Kemper adds that life’s anxieties and stresses, coupled with the food choices we make and the environment we live in, often contribute to the diagnosis. Dr. Nate Bergman, Kemper Cognitive Wellness’ chief scientific wellness officer, and his team create highly individualized treatment plans designed to address individual root causes. Bergman, who Dr. Nate Bergman reviews a qEEG brain map. co-developed Cleveland Clinic’s Center for Functional Medicine’s Her mother had passed away at Kemper program for cognitive impairment, takes House years earlier, and the client feared genetic, biochemical and lifestyle factors her fate would be the same. into consideration, as well as common An extensive assessment featuring maladies often taken for granted. qEEG brain mapping and lab testing of “People who have sleep apnea, for more than 100 biomarkers for chronic example, sometimes shirk it off as no big disease resulted in a personalized plan deal,” Kemper says. “Dr. Bergman calls of action for her. It included lifestyle it ‘slow drip brain damage,’ because it changes centered on diet and addressing leads to poor oxygenation of brain cells. sleep apnea, as well as hormone therapy. Night after night, you better believe In just four months, she noticed big that’s impacting your brain.” changes: The decline was halted and One of Kemper’s clients was a 58-year- she’d recovered the memory function old executive who was experiencing ma- she’d lost. jor changes with memory, and keeping up Kemper Cognitive Wellness is among at the office was becoming increasingly the nation’s leading brain health centers difficult. The final straw came when the for prevention, testing, services and avid runner became lost one day on a support for Alzheimer’s and related route she exercised on almost every day. dementias.
COURTESY KEMPER HOUSE
t was a labor of love that led registered nurse Betty Kemper to found the business that bears the family name. “Her mother-in-law, Helen Kemper, was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease in the 1980s,” says Betty’s daughterin-law, Jenny Kemper. “That’s when she recognized the gap in care for this population in the long-term care industry. Betty had a vision [to create] Kemper House, a secure, nurturing residential environment dedicated to caring for the unique needs of people with memory loss. Kemper House’s mission is to honor these individuals with dignified care and provide a life of meaning and purpose in their final years.” More than 20 years later, Kemper Houses in Highland Heights and Strongsville remain true to the innovative setting residents and their loved ones appreciate. Kemper Cognitive Wellness was created to help people prevent and push back against cognitive loss. The program detects possible triggers of memory loss in people of all ages before it becomes acutely problematic. “Many people don’t think about cognitive loss until there’s a problem,” says Jenny Kemper, director of Kemper Cognitive Wellness. “But one doesn’t Jenny Kemper just wake up one day and have dementia. Changes are often taking place in the brain 20 to 30 years before the first symptoms present themselves. “If you have a family history, you want to be proactive and get a comprehensive
