Our Founder: Alison Kennedy

Alison Kennedy’s passion to help individuals with dementia started in her graduate studies at the University of Manitoba in Canada. She obtained her M.Sc. degree in Foods and Human Nutritional Sciences in 2001 focused on the potential role of thiamine in the pathogenesis and treatment of Alzheimer’s Disease. After graduation she spent two years volunteering as a recreation assistant on an Alzheimer unit at a personal care home. She lectured at the University of Manitoba for five years, and, over a ten year period at the University of Manitoba’s Centre on Aging, interviewed seniors, their caregivers and healthcare professionals for national and provincial studies on aging. At a private home care company she gained further education and experience leading to new roles training companions and directing a Brain Vitality program. In 2011 she seized the opportunity to start her own company, Kennedy Cognitive Services, Inc. with the Brain Vitality clients and staff and the resource manuals and tool kits that she had created. Her staff are now called Cognitive Support Specialists and provide an individualized on-going program of fun one-on-one cognitive stimulation to clients with dementia at their place of residence. As her program has been warmly embraced by clients, families and healthcare professionals, and recognizing the need for this type of program to be widely accessible and affordable, Alison is holding a vision for the future of dementia care in the cost effective training and equipping of many Cognitive Support Specialists within public health care using existing resources. Due to her academic education she also holds another strong vision that researchers from multiple disciplines will turn their focus intensely on evidence of systemic thiamine deficiency in Alzheimer’s Disease and research the cause and treatment of this deficiency. Her hope is that Alzheimer’s may one day be prevented, slowed or cured.

Publications:
Kennedy, A.R., 2001. The potential role of thiamine in the pathogenesis and treatment of Alzheimer Disease. M.Sc. dissertation. University of Manitoba, Winnipeg. mspace.lib.umanitoba.ca/handle/1993/19635

Kennedy, A.R., 2017. Scientific evidence supporting a unified theory of Alzheimer Disease. Alzheimer’s and Dementia, the Journal of the Alzheimer’s Association. doi.org/10.1016/j.jalz.2017.07.551

Kennedy, A.R., 2023. Validated, unified theory of Alzheimer Disease illuminates two essential research questions. Alzheimer’s and Dementia, the Journal of the Alzheimer’s Association / Vol. 19, Issue S12/ e077554.
doi.org/10.1002/alz.077554