Barry
Reisberg, MD
(United States), Past President
Barry
Reisberg became President of IPA in 1997, having served as an officer and
member of the Board of Directors since 1985. A geriatric psychiatrist, he is
Professor of Psychiatry at the New York University School of Medicine,
Clinical Director of the NYU Aging and Dementia Research Center, and Director
of the Zachary and Elizabeth M. Fisher Alzheimer’s Disease Education and
Resources Program at NYU.
Prior to beginning medical training, he was
awarded a Japan Society fellowship, enabling him to study at Jochi (Sophia)
University in Tokyo. While in medical school in New York, he worked at a rural
hospital in Nigeria and traveled widely to Turkey, Iran, Afghanistan, India,
Nepal and Haiti. He also did a behavior therapy fellowship at the Middlesex
Hospital of the University of London.
Dr. Reisberg’s Global Deterioration Scale
(GDS) and Functional Assessment Staging Scale (FAST) described the clinical
course of Alzheimer’s disease (AD) in unprecedented detail. He also
systematically described and developed measures for many of the Behavioral and
Psychological Symptoms of Dementia (BPSD). These descriptions helped lead to
improved treatments for these symptoms. Additionally, he directed research
demonstrating, for the first time, residual thinking abilities in the latter
half of AD and potentially remediable physical changes in several AD patients,
as well as the nature of fundamental pathologic brain changes in severe AD.
Dr. Reisberg has also directed research that
elucidated many of the fundamental neurologic changes in AD, including
specific neurologic reflex markers of the advent of incontinence in the course
of the disease. At the other end of the severity spectrum, Dr. Reisberg has
improved knowledge of the boundaries of normal aging and AD, and identified
culture independent neuromotor markers of the onset of AD. In recent years,
Dr. Reisberg noted that the stages of AD can be translated into developmental
ages (DA). These DAs can explain the behavioral symptoms, management needs,
and overall care needs of the AD patient. This phenomenon, termed retrogenesis,
can also explain many of the physiologic and pathologic symptoms of AD.
Retrogenesis has also resulted in a new science of AD management, which can
potentially greatly improve the care received by AD patients.
As chairman of IPA’s Research Awards
Committee Dr. Reisberg has been very involved with the prestigious IPA
Research Awards in Psychogeriatrics since their inception. Since 1989 he has
also headed IPA’s Pharmacy and Therapeutics Committee, which has organized
various activities including meetings on methodology of drug trials in AD
(1994) and diagnosis of AD (1996).
Dr. Reisberg has served on the Board of
Directors of the American Aging Association and the American Association for
Geriatric Psychiatry, and on both the Medical and Scientific Advisory Board of
the U.S. Alzheimer’s Association and the Medical and Scientific Advisory
Panel of Alzheimer’s Disease International. He has also served on the
Scientific Advisory Committee of the International Conferences on Alzheimer’s
Disease and Related Disorders. He is adjunct professor at the Center for
Studies in Aging of the McGill University Faculty of Medicine in Montreal,
Canada. In addition, he has been a merit reviewer of research grants for the
U.S. National Institutes of Health and a research grant reviewer for other
U.S., Canadian, and European agencies.
An editorial board member for seven medical and
scientific journals, he is the author of A Guide to Alzheimer’s Disease
and editor of the reference textbook, Alzheimer’s Disease, and has
authored or co-authored more than 200 scientific papers in geriatrics,
psychopharmacology, neuroscience and related areas. He has directed U.S.
National Institutes of Health-supported research for more than 20 years, and
has received numerous grants and awards from governmental, foundation,
industrial and other sources.
Barry
Reisberg became President of IPA in 1997, having served as an officer and
member of the Board of Directors since 1985. A geriatric psychiatrist, he is
Professor of Psychiatry at the New York University School of Medicine,
Clinical Director of the NYU Aging and Dementia Research Center, and Director
of the Zachary and Elizabeth M. Fisher Alzheimer’s Disease Education and
Resources Program at NYU.