Isaac Health is thrilled to welcome Dr. Chen Zhao, MD as our new Medical Director. From an early fascination with the brain to years of clinical and research experience in aging and dementia, her career has been shaped by a belief that high-quality dementia care should be accessible to everyone. In this conversation, Dr. Zhao reflects on her path to Isaac, what she finds most meaningful about caring for patients and families, and how she hopes to help guide our growing clinical programs.
What first sparked your interest in brain health? And what drew you to dementia care?
My interest in brain health began in high school, when I was introduced to Oliver Sacks’ The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat and V.S. Ramachandran’s Phantoms in the Brain. These books sparked my early fascination with the brain, as the seat of identity, behavior, and human experience.
Years later, that curiosity led me to pursue an NIH-funded T32 fellowship at Columbia University, a clinical and research fellowship in Aging & Dementia, that included both clinical experience in memory clinic and a Master’s degree in Neuro-Epidemiology. In clinic, I saw patients with mild memory concerns as well as more rare forms of dementia, such as frontotemporal dementia (FTD), primary progressive aphasia (PPA), and atypical Parkinsonian syndromes like progressive supranuclear palsy (PSP).
My experience at Columbia exposed me to the world of public health and the powerful tools of epidemiological research. My primary research focus was on lifestyle factors such as diet, physical activity, and sleep, and risk for dementia.
That combination of clinical care and public health ultimately informs how I think about dementia care today. I am excited by the prospect of scaling dementia care to not only support people living with cognitive impairment, but to leverage research findings and the innovative platform of Isaac Health to make brain health accessible to everyone.
What do you find most meaningful about caring for patients with cognitive or behavioral changes?
Dementia is a very scary diagnosis for many patients and families. What I find most meaningful about caring for people with cognitive and behavioral changes is the opportunity to support both patients and their families through the diagnostic process and to accompany them as the disease progresses.
Right before I joined Isaac, I worked in a full-time clinical role at Sutter Health. In the memory clinic, I often met with the patient’s care partner individually. Those conversations frequently revealed deep emotional pain, uncertainty, and strain related to behavioral changes in their loved one. I often tell patients and families that dementia is a family disease. The patient experiences symptoms, but the impact extends beyond the individual to the family structure as a whole. Being able to validate that reality and support families through challenging times is both meaningful and rewarding to me.
What made Isaac Health feel like the right place for your next chapter?
Isaac Health felt like the right next chapter because of my alignment with its vision and values. My initial interest stemmed from conversations with Dr. Joel Salinas (Isaac Health’s chief medical officer and behavioral neurologist), and our shared belief that high quality dementia care should be democratized and accessible to everyone, including people living in “dementia deserts” who lack access to specialty neurology care.
After completing a fellowship at Columbia, I joined the faculty at Penn State Health as Assistant Professor of Neurology and Public Health Sciences. Pennsylvania has a large Nepali Bhutanese refugee population. I saw many patients from this population in memory clinic, often presenting at younger ages and with significant cognitive and functional impairment. Many individuals had been exposed to war trauma and other unique situations, which played a role in their symptomatology and also how they engaged with the healthcare delivery system as well. That experience highlighted for me the limitations of existing, traditional dementia care models. The opportunity at Isaac Health to expand access to quality dementia care to underserved communities is deeply motivating to me and central to why Isaac felt like the right fit.
What excites you most about helping shape clinical care at Isaac Health as it continues to grow?
What’s exciting is scaling and working with Dr. Salinas and Dr. Julius Bruch, MD, PhD (CEO and co-founder) to help shape the care delivery models at Isaac Health. As we scale, I’m focused on making sure that we’re providing care safely, prioritizing patient safety above all else, and ensuring high quality of care throughout.
What’s something about the brain that you find endlessly fascinating or surprising?
There’s so many things, but I would say the concept of “thinking, fast and slow”, a concept described by Daniel Kahneman. He differentiates between two modes of thought. There is a faster, emotional system, which helps us react quickly and intuitively and a slower, more logical system, which helps us reason through decisions. What I find particularly interesting is how these two modes of thinking interact in everyday life, often outside of our conscious awareness.
What’s one book, podcast, or other media that’s influenced how you think about brain health?
One book that has influenced how I think about brain health is Peter Attia’s Outlive: The Science and Art of Longevity. His concept of “Medicine 3.0” with its emphasis on prevention aligns with a lifecourse epidemiology approach to thinking about dementia. We know that amyloid buildup begins in the brain many years, even decades, before the first symptoms of dementia appear. That long, silent phase represents a critical opportunity for potential intervention. Through healthy lifestyle modifications, particularly during critical time windows, it may be possible to decrease risk of developing cognitive impairment and slow cognitive decline.
What’s something you love to do in your spare time?
I love making Spotify playlists and listening to audiobooks. It’s a way for me to stay mentally engaged beyond medicine and to treat myself to moments of calm during busy days.
What’s your favorite brain-healthy activity?
Oh, that is a good one. I would say exercise – any kind of exercise. I have a little treadmill here, and I try to fit that in between Zoom calls. But yeah, overall, physical activity is really great for the brain.
