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Two Women: One Diagnosis, Two Strategies, Two Outcomes
Dr. Manna Semby
TL;DR: Two women, both diagnosed with early-stage Alzheimer’s, both with devastating family histories. One is now walking 3,000 miles across America at age 81, fourteen years post-diagnosis. The other needs help getting dressed four years after diagnosis. One woman immediately pursued comprehensive root-cause interventions—addressing diet, exercise, sleep, hormones, inflammation, stress, and cognitive training, following an unconventional, experimental protocol years before it was validated. The other stayed paralyzed by denial (“it’s just menopause”), trauma from caregiving, and commitment to conventional pharmaceutical approaches that offered no real help. Early-stage Alzheimer’s has a window where a comprehensive precision medicine intervention can slow, halt, or reverse decline. But you must act before damage becomes irreversible.
A Note of Gratitude: Before we begin, I want to express my deepest gratitude to Fiona Phillips and her husband Martin Frizell for their courage in writing “Remember When: My Life with Alzheimer’s.” This blog post is written in that same spirit—continuing the conversation Fiona started, expanding it, and asking hard questions about what determines our path forward after a devastating diagnosis. Thank you, Fiona, for your bravery. This is for you, and for every woman who will face this moment of choice.
A Note on Disease Variability: Alzheimer’s disease, like breast cancer or multiple sclerosis, manifests and progresses differently in different people. Genetics, disease subtype, age of onset, co-existing conditions, and dozens of other factors create unique presentations. The two women whose stories I discuss were both diagnosed with Alzheimer’s, but I am not comparing the disease process in the two, rather the sets of circumstances that led them to make the choices they made about treatment and the resulting outcomes. What I’m examining here is this: what happens in the space between early symptoms and the initial slow but eventual rapid decline? Where do we look for information? What risk benefit calculations do we make? What choices become available—or unavailable—based on our response? What role does agency play when biology gives us a narrow window?
Two Women, Same Diagnosis, Radically Different Outcomes
Two women. Both diagnosed with early-stage Alzheimer’s disease. Both with devastating family histories—watching parents slowly disappear into the fog of dementia. Both intelligent, accomplished, resourceful and with access to information and means.
Fiona Phillips: Diagnosed in 2021 at age 61. Four years later, she requires help with daily activities like showering, brushing her teeth, and getting dressed. She can do these things physically, but she’s unable to think through how to do them. Her husband Martin writes that she sometimes doesn’t know he is her husband.
Judy Benjamin: Diagnosed in 2011 at age 67. Fourteen years later, at age 81, she is currently walking 3,000 miles across the United States—from San Diego to St. Augustine. She started this challenging, ambitious journey in April 2025 to prove that “we can all live healthy and productive lives at any age.”
Same disease. Similar starting points. Radically different outcomes.
What made the difference? Not genetics—both had strong family histories. Not age—they had a six-year difference in age at the time of diagnosis. Not luck or access to some miracle drug.
The difference was strategy. The difference was what happened in the weeks and months leading up to and right after diagnosis. The difference was agency.
Why Does Agency Matter More Than Almost Anything Else?
Agency, in the context of health, means two things working together: the belief that your actions matter, combined with the willingness to take those actions even when you’re terrified.
It’s not toxic positivity. It’s not pretending you’re not scared. It’s not denying the reality of your diagnosis or the weight of your family history. It’s feeling all of that—the fear, the grief, the rage at the unfairness—and asking: “What can I do? What’s possible? Who do I need on my team? What do I need to learn?”
Women struggle with agency in health contexts for reasons both external and internal. We’re conditioned to be “good patients”—compliant, trusting, not asking too many questions. We face medical gaslighting that tells us our symptoms are “just stress” or “just hormones” or “just aging.” We internalize ageism that whispers, “Your brain is supposed to decline. This is normal. Accept it.”
Add to that the specific trauma of watching a parent deteriorate with dementia, and agency becomes even harder to access. When you’ve witnessed the horror up close, when you’ve changed your mother’s diaper and watched your father forget your name, it’s easy to internalize that trajectory as inevitable. The script is already written. You’ve seen how this story ends.
But here’s what I know from my work with midlife women, from my training in functional medicine, and from stories like Judy’s: If a woman has her agency and takes action, there is no stopping her. When she believes her choices matter and she’s willing to do the hard, uncomfortable, unconventional things—she becomes a force of nature.
When women give up their agency—whether for external reasons (system failures, lack of support) or internal reasons (fear, denial, trauma, perfectionism)—and they don’t take action, they suffer. Not because they’re weak or foolish, but because they don’t know there is another path. Or they know but don’t believe it. Or they believe it but can’t access it psychologically.
The critical window is what happens right when you know you are at-risk for dementia, often well before diagnosis. Those first few months and years often determine the trajectory more than any drug prescribed after diagnosis. Because that’s when you’re making the most important choice: Do I see it for what it is? Will I be proactive? Will I get help now when I have everything to gain? Or will I freeze and accept what I’ve been told is inevitable?
Agency is not something you are born with; it can be cultivated. It’s not something you either have or don’t have. It’s a muscle you can build, a skill you can develop, a mindset you can choose even when everything in you wants to collapse.
Fiona’s Story
Fiona Phillips was one of the most recognizable faces on British television—a beloved presenter on GMTV, warm and relatable, someone millions of people invited into their homes every morning. She was professional, accomplished, intelligent. She had a platform, a voice, resources.
She also had a family history that would terrify anyone.
Her mother, Amy, died of Alzheimer’s disease in May 2006. Shortly after that, her father Neville was diagnosed with the same disease and passed away in February 2012. Fiona didn’t just watch from a distance. She was a hands-on caregiver for both parents. She left her dream job at the helm of GMTV in 2008 to care for her father. She lived inside the daily reality of Alzheimer’s for years—the confusion, the repetition, the slow erasure of the people she loved, the intimate indignities of caregiving.
She made two documentaries about her family’s experience with Alzheimer’s. She became a long-standing supporter and ambassador for Alzheimer’s Research UK and Alzheimer’s Society. She channeled her grief into advocacy, raising awareness, supporting research for better treatments.
And then, in 2021, at age 61, Fiona received her own diagnosis: early-onset Alzheimer’s disease.
Understanding Fiona’s path
Denial and fear. For years, she attributed her symptoms to menopause. Because there were no obvious menopause symptoms to validate that attribution, she simply didn’t seek help. The denial allowed time to pass. The window began to close. She often wondered about whether she would also get diagnosed with the disease both her parents died of, but didn’t know if there was anything she could do. When I read her story, I wept because I could tell how those precious pre-diagnosis years were ticking by while Fiona sat paralyzed by fear and denial.
Her public association with Alzheimer’s organizations may have done her a disservice. Alzheimer’s Research UK and Alzheimer’s Society focus primarily on pharmaceutical interventions—specifically, monoclonal antibody drugs. These drugs don’t help the disease in any meaningful way. Recent approvals have shown marginal benefits at best, significant side effects, enormous cost, and no real change in quality of life or disease trajectory. They address one narrow aspect of Alzheimer’s pathology (amyloid plaques) while ignoring the myriad other contributing factors that drive cognitive decline.
When you’ve spent years publicly championing this approach, when your credibility and platform are built on supporting these organizations, when you’ve made documentaries promoting this framework—it becomes psychologically very difficult to pivot. Even when your own life is on the line.
Trauma-informed paralysis. Fiona had lived inside the horror for over a decade, watching both parents deteriorate, providing intimate caregiving, witnessing every stage of decline. That kind of trauma may have created a deeply ingrained script of inevitability.
Access without utilization. Fiona had resources and financial means. She and Martin saw Dr. Louise Newson—a well-known private menopause doctor—and got an HRT prescription just months before Fiona’s diagnosis. But it was too late. They didn’t know about functional medicine and comprehensive testing to understand the root causes of her cognitive decline. They didn’t know protocols like Dr. Bredesen’s ReCODE, publicly available since 2014—seven years before her diagnosis.
Or perhaps they heard about these unconventional approaches but didn’t believe they would work. Or their association with Alzheimer’s Association created a psychological barrier to departing from the conventional framework Fiona had championed publicly.
Her husband Martin’s comment reveals their framework: he wished Fiona had been diagnosed with cancer instead, because at least then she might have had a chance of a cure and a treatment pathway. This is unfortunate ignorance leading to medical nihilism—a belief that nothing can be done. And when you believe nothing can be done, you do nothing.
Today, approximately four years post-diagnosis, Fiona requires significant support. She needs help showering and brushing her teeth. She can do these things physically, but she’s unable to think through how to do them.
Fiona has shown enormous courage in sharing her story publicly. I am eternally grateful for her willingness to share her story in “Remember When.” But we must be honest about what happened here. We must look at the choice points. Because other women are standing at those same crossroads right now, and they deserve to know that there is another path available. It requires going outside the conventional framework, being willing to be unconventional, and taking immediate, decisive action. But it is there.
Judy’s Story
Here is a story very different from Fiona’s.
Judy Benjamin is a woman who has always lived fully. An avid cyclist, hiker, pilot, world traveler, and an animal advocate. Someone who sees her body as capable, powerful, a vehicle for adventure and purpose.
Like Fiona, she has a family history that would make anyone’s blood run cold. Her mother was diagnosed with early onset Alzheimer’s at the age of 63 and passed away from the disease after a 20-year battle. Judy knew what the road ahead could look like.
In 2011, at age 67, Judy received her diagnosis: early-stage Alzheimer’s disease. I wonder if her diagnosis would have come earlier had she not been so physically active throughout her life.
Still, Judy had every reason to despair. She knew the statistics. She understood the conventional medical perspective: there’s no cure, no real treatment, nothing to be done but wait and watch yourself disappear.
Judy refused to accept that outcome. Instead, she made a choice. She became “Patient Zero.”
Upon diagnosis, Judy immediately made significant changes to her diet and lifestyle. She didn’t wait for permission or for mainstream acceptance or randomized controlled trials. She took a calculated risk on a new protocol as if her life depended on it. Because it did and she won.
A serendipitous connection changed everything: she found Dr. Dale Bredesen and became his “patient zero”—the very first person to embrace his revolutionary ReCODE protocol for treating and preventing cognitive decline.
Think about that timing. This was 2011. Three full years before Dr. Bredesen published “The End of Alzheimer’s,” so neither established science nor mainstream. This wasn’t what her neurologist recommended or what insurance would cover. This was experimental, unconventional, unproven.
Judy said yes anyway.
The mindset shift Judy made was profound. It’s not like she didn’t feel the grief and fear. She knew what she was up against. But she refused to let those feelings paralyze her. Grief AND action. Fear AND forward movement. Both, always both.
She built her team—doctors, coaches, practitioners who understood this approach. She became an expert in her own biology. She did the hard work of behavior change, day after day, week after week. She refused to accept her mother’s 20-year trajectory as her own inevitable future.
Fourteen years post-diagnosis, here’s where Judy is:
In April 2025, at age 80, she started walking 3,000 miles across the United States—from San Diego, California to St. Augustine, Florida. She’s currently months into this challenging journey. Her message to the world: “We can all live healthy and productive lives at any age.”
She’s not walking despite her Alzheimer’s diagnosis. She’s walking BECAUSE of it. Just recently, I watched her interview with Dr. Bredesen, having just completed 2,000 miles of her odyssey. This was a woman who was fully present, mentally, emotionally and physically, and focused on her task at hand of finishing the walk successfully.
Judy’s Path: Take Action!
Judy showed a willingness to step outside her comfort zone, to try an experimental protocol, and bear the expense of the protocol that Insurance would not pay for.
She had financial resources—functional medicine is expensive. But more importantly, she reframed the diagnosis as a call to action, a problem to solve, not inevitability. And she had purpose built in: all the things she was passionate about. Purpose gives your brain a reason to stay sharp.
What’s the message for you?
You don’t have to be exactly like Judy to succeed. You don’t need to be a pilot or athlete. But you do need to be willing to question what you’ve been told is inevitable, seek information beyond what your neurologist offers, consider approaches that aren’t mainstream, invest in yourself even when insurance won’t cover it, and find or create purpose worth fighting for.
It is worth repeating that agency can be cultivated. Risk tolerance can be developed. Purpose can be found. The woman you are today doesn’t have to be the woman you are six months from now. You can build the mindset, skills, and support system that enable action. That cultivation of agency might be the most important work you ever do.
What Is the ReCODE Protocol That Helped Judy?
Dr. Dale Bredesen’s ReCODE protocol (Reversal of Cognitive Decline) represents a paradigm shift. Instead of looking for a single cause and single drug, ReCODE recognizes that cognitive decline results from multiple contributing factors—often 20, 30 or 40 or more things going wrong simultaneously.
The protocol involves comprehensive testing to identify each person’s specific contributors: insulin resistance and metabolic dysfunction, chronic inflammation, hormone imbalances, nutrient deficiencies, toxic exposures, chronic infections, sleep disorders, chronic stress, lack of exercise, lack of cognitive stimulation, vascular issues, genetic vulnerabilities.
Once we identify YOUR specific contributors, we build a personalized protocol addressing all of them simultaneously. Not just one or two. All of them. This is why monotherapy—one drug targeting one mechanism—has consistently failed. You can’t fix a multi-factorial problem with a single intervention.
For Judy, this meant becoming meticulous about nutrition (anti-inflammatory, brain-supportive whole foods), continuing vigorous physical activity (cycling, hiking), optimizing sleep, managing stress, cognitive training, targeted supplementation based on her deficiencies, addressing any infections or toxic exposures, and maintaining strong social connections and purpose.
Dr. Bredesen’s initial published research showed that in patients with early cognitive decline who followed comprehensive protocols, cognitive function could be improved and maintained. The fundamental finding was revolutionary: early-stage cognitive decline is not an inevitable downward slope. The trajectory can be changed. At the time of this writing, in October 2025, a randomized controlled trial based on ReCODE is nearing completion with preliminary results confirming previous findings.
Why don’t most people know this?
It’s not pharmaceutical, so there’s no marketing budget. It requires significant behavior change. Insurance doesn’t cover it. The research is still emerging. In the meantime, people are declining while waiting for “definitive” proof. Sometimes you have to be your own proof of concept.
The Neuroscience: Why the Early-Stage Window Changes Everything
Early-stage cognitive decline is not just “less severe” late-stage Alzheimer’s. It’s a different biological state with different possibilities for intervention.
In early stages, your brain still has significant plasticity—the ability to form new neural connections, to compensate for damaged areas, to adapt and reorganize. Neurons are damaged but many are still alive and functioning. The disease processes are active but not yet overwhelming.
In late stages, you’ve lost too much brain tissue. Too many neurons are dead. The compensatory mechanisms are exhausted. Plasticity is severely limited. At that point, we’re talking about managing symptoms and maintaining quality of life, not reversing decline.
The window exists, but it doesn’t stay open forever.
What You Can Control
You can’t control whether insurance covers functional medicine or whether your neurologist knows about comprehensive interventions. But you can control whether you seek information beyond what your doctor tells you. Whether you’re willing to pay privately for approaches that might help. Whether you let fear paralyze you or push you into action. Whether you stay loyal to approaches that aren’t working. Whether you’re willing to be unconventional when it matters most.
The internal barriers are often more powerful than external ones. And the internal barriers are the ones you have the most power to change.
The Choice Point
When you learn that you are at risk for Alzheimer’s or another form of dementia, what you do in the first few months and years matters more than almost anything else. Not because action guarantees a perfect outcome, but inaction certainly guarantees you never find out what was possible.
You can feel the fear and act anyway. You can grieve and build your team simultaneously. You can honor the weight of what you’re facing while refusing to let it make all your decisions.
Being willing to be unconventional, to explore outside mainstream frameworks, to invest in yourself when the system won’t—that might be the most important decision you make. Not with guarantees or certainty, but with agency, action and a strategy based on early, intensive and continuing intervention.
Your brain is worth fighting for.
About the Author:
Dr. Manna Semby, ND
Functional Medicine Practitioner & Wellness Expert
Dr. Manna Semby, ND, IFMCP, MSCP, is a naturopathic and functional medicine doctor based in San Diego, California. She is the only doctor in the San Diego area who is both a Menopause Society Certified Practitioner and certified in the ReCODE 2.0 Protocol for preventing and reversing Alzheimer’s disease and dementia. She is also is a MoCA certified administrator. With over ten years in medicine, Dr. Manna has helped many women reverse early stages of cognitive decline through comprehensive brain, bone, metabolic, and midlife hormone medical care. She draws on years of clinical training and ongoing professional development to translate complex medical insights into practical, real-world precision medicine guidance.
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