Good Neighbor Podcast: Bergen
Bringing together local businesses and neighbors of Bergen County
Good Neighbor Podcast: Bergen
Ep. # 20 Enhancing Brain Health and Memory: Dr. Eric Kaplan's Insights on Functional Neurology
Unlock the secrets to enhancing brain health and memory as we sit down with Dr. Eric Kaplan of Kaplan Brain and Body. Inspired by his grandmother’s struggles, Dr. Kaplan's journey into functional neurology reveals a world where brain function doesn't have to decline with age. Learn about the groundbreaking field of functional neurology, where instead of relying on medication, innovative neurologic exercises and the power of neuroplasticity offer hope for those living with conditions such as Alzheimer's and Parkinson's. Dr. Kaplan shares his expertise and experience studying under the esteemed Dr. Carrick, providing a roadmap for improving brain health that challenges conventional beliefs.
We also tackle the pressing issue of sleep and its crucial role in maintaining cognitive function. Discover practical tips for aligning your sleep with natural light cycles and managing the effects of electronic devices on your circadian rhythms. Dr. Kaplan shares insights from his book, "Boost Your Brain Power," offering neuroscience-based strategies to sharpen memory and focus. Explore the transformative potential of these targeted interventions, whether you’re helping a child develop communication skills or supporting a senior with dementia. Join us for a thoughtful conversation that promises to equip you with tools to enhance your well-being and brain health.
Kaplan Brain and Body
Dr. Eric Kaplan
New York
212-620-8121
New Jersey
201-261-2150
info@kaplanbrainandbody.com
kaplandc.com
This is the Good Neighbor Podcast, the place where local businesses and neighbors come together. Here's your host, Doug Drohan.
Speaker 2:Hey everybody, welcome to another episode of the Good Neighbor Podcast from Bergen County. I'm Doug Drohan, your host and owner of the Bergen Neighbors Media Group, and I am joined today by Dr Eric Kaplan of Kaplan Brain and Body. Welcome, dr Kaplan.
Speaker 3:Thank you for having me. This is such a great idea. I love it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's great. So you know. A little introduction about Eric. I think you're a local guy. I'm not sure if you're still in Rivervale, but you used to be in Rivervale, right.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I used to be in Rivervale. Now I live in Rivervale right.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I used to be in Rivervale. Now I live in Montvale. Okay, all right. So Pasquak Valley, exactly, and did you grow up here, or where'd you grow up?
Speaker 3:No, I grew up in Rivervale and after I got married and had kids, we moved to.
Speaker 2:Montvale. So I'm going from Pasquak Valley to Pasquak Hills. There you go. So Dr Kaplan has a pretty impressive you know background in academic credentials. He has a BS in human biology at Emory University and a DC from Palmer College of Chiropractic West. In addition to that, he's actually a board certified chiropractic neurologist and has over 1500 hours of postgrad studies at the Carrick Institute of post-grad studies at the Carrick Institute there's courses such as movement disorders, vestibular rehabilitation, child development delays and there's so many other things we're going to get into.
Speaker 2:But more importantly, he's the founder and sole proprietor of Kaplan Brain and Body, which is located I guess you have two locations, right, you're in the village in New York City and you're in Kinderkommack in Emerson, just down the road from where you live, basically. And the interesting thing about the brain and body is that it's a full-service chiropractic, neurology and wellness center. It's not just chiropractic. And so, dr Kaplan, why don't you tell us a little bit more about your practice? And you know, when did you decide? At what point, when you were studying biology, did you decide, hey, I want to take this a little bit further and explore chiropractic and neurological kind of studies comes from my grandma Dottie.
Speaker 3:When I was growing up we were very close and she was just so loving and energetic and giving and she always looked so beautiful and was so popular and so active. And what I saw? The last 30 years of her life her brain got worse and worse and she started having memory problems and she started, you know, not being able to take care of herself. And then she needed, you know, the cane, and then the walker, and then the wheelchair, and then she needed a diaper, and then she was in a nursing home and, and it was the last year, she didn't even recognize me and she was just kept saying I want to die. This is horrible, like just end it.
Speaker 3:And I just saw her going from this amazing person to having this miserable life. So I wanted to become a brain expert. So I started studying functional neurology with my mentor, dr Carrick, and I became a brain expert and now in my practices I'm able to help people reverse Alzheimer's and Parkinson's and stroke and help children with autism. It's like very rewarding experience that my grandmother inspired me to help others so they don't have to suffer like she did.
Speaker 2:Wow, is there a connection between neurology and chiropractic? I mean, when you traditionally, when you think of a chiropractor, you think of getting an adjustment right. So where's? The connection between that and you know the brain and neurology.
Speaker 3:Well, the connection was through Dr Carrick, who was a chiropractor in Canada but then when he came to America he developed this whole functional neurology process. When he came to America he developed this whole functional neurology process. So when I was in chiropractic school my friends were just talking in the back of the room. I remember my friend, mark, says oh, you got to see this guy, dr Carrick. He's the father of functional neurology. He's really smart. So I would go to chiropractic school from Monday through Friday and then on Saturday and Sunday I would study under Dr Carrick and learn functional neurology. So even in chiropractic school I was the one that was seeing the Parkinson's patients and the dizziness patients, because everyone knew that was my area of expertise.
Speaker 2:Wow, so you say functional neurology. Now I've heard of neurology, of course. And so what's the difference between, say, somebody who's suffering from dementia and they go to see a neurologist? You know, versus just you know, I guess, straight up neurology.
Speaker 3:Yep, so most neurologists write prescriptions, so there's not too much medicine to help with Alzheimer's, but there's a functional neurologist. I discover where the problems are coming from, so where's the dysfunction in the brain? And then I'm sort of like a physical therapist, but for the brain. So instead of doing physical exercise like weightlifting or stretching, I'm doing neurologic exercises like memory and balance and using different types of lights and sounds and stimulating the types of lights and sounds and stimulating the brain to make it stronger and stronger. So it's called neuroplasticity, where you could actually rewire the brain and you could actually make it stronger and improve over time. So it's a big lie that our memory just gets worse with age. So and I discovered that, so I teach my patients and my people who follow me and go to my lectures on how to improve their memory as they get older.
Speaker 2:That's great. I you know, in my business I work with a lot of senior care professionals. I go to a lot of senior care networking events because the demographic of my readers is either the seniors or, primarily, their kids, who help them with making decisions. So I've listened to talks from the Alzheimer's Association. I've listened to people and talk about dementia care. I've visited a number of memory care facilities and one of the things I noticed with a lot of the newer memory care, like standalone memory care, is that they try to keep you know, it's more of an environmental stimulation, I guess right their environment, the hallways, the doors, there's a lot of things that are meant to just stimulate them and obviously they're getting up and walking. So I see there seems to be a trend where people are realizing that it's, you know, it's about a holistic and, as you said, functional approach rather than just here take a pill and and we'll see in, you know, in two weeks, kind of thing.
Speaker 3:So it's very interesting yeah.
Speaker 2:Now you know your, your business is. You know it's a wellness center. So I think you know, from what I gather, this whole functional approach to neurology. It kind of permeates your entire kind of mission and approach to wellness overall, whether you have a neurological issue or you're dealing with. You know fatigue or you have anxiety. So can you tell us a little bit more about you know some of the services and how they all kind of tie together?
Speaker 3:Yeah, so we have a lot going on in our offices, we have a lot of modern technology and then I'm also an old school doctor as well. So we have stuff like a hyperbaric oxygen chamber, and the hyperbaric oxygen chamber is this chamber that you lie in and it's 100% oxygen. Normal air is 20% oxygen In the chamber. You're actually in 100% oxygen and, even better, there's an increase in pressure. So the pressure squeezes in the oxygen into the cells. It helps produce mitochondrial and ATP and helps actually suffocate different bacteria like Lyme disease and COVID-19. It was originally invented for the bends where people would go scuba diving and their inner ears would get messed up. So it helped to regulate the pressure. But then people started like their skin started healing and their energy improved and their brain started improving. So now you know people use it for a lot of different things.
Speaker 2:And then we also have yeah, so how? How often would somebody um say they're suffering from COVID? Like how often would would they go into a chamber?
Speaker 3:Well, it all depends. So I take a lot of different approaches to something like COVID. Because if it was just only the hyperbaric chamber and they do this in hospitals they started incorporating this, people would do it every day, monday through Friday, you know, for four straight weeks, just to basically suffocate the virus and kill the bacteria and build that immune system. So you could do it a lot. I don't do it that much because we're doing all these other things in the office, you know, like cold, laser and neurofeedback, and we're working on their health and their sleep and their stress and we're doing brain exercises and we're doing a lot of you know techniques breathing techniques, posture analysis. So we're doing brain exercises and we're doing a lot of you know techniques breathing techniques, posture analysis so we're doing a lot of stuff all together. So when you do everything at once, then the neuroplasticity changes the brain the quickest and you get the best results.
Speaker 2:So, I guess, does everything go back to the brain? I mean, whether you're dealing with, you know, sleep, sleep issues, or you're dealing with dizziness, or you're dealing with depression, all those things seem to be more brain related. But again there's the approach to the functional medicine, I guess, where the old saying, like the hip bones connected to your leg bone, there's a guy named Paul Cech, cech Institute. When I was a personal trainer I don't know if you've ever heard of him he gave some seminars and when you looked at it as a personal trainer obviously you're not a doctor, but when you had a client come in and they were complaining of back pain or some other issue, he taught us to look at the entire body as like a totem pole.
Speaker 2:And if they have, if their back hurts, we'll look at their feet, you know. Or they, you know, look at how they walk or look at how they hold their head. Maybe it's tied to their eyesight, maybe they're turning their head a certain way to read, and that's creating a neck, you know neck issue, and it's all. Everything's basically tied. If you have an injury on one side, you're going to compensate on the other side. So, yeah, no, I think it's great and I've seen you. I know you do a lot of media. You write articles for the local newspaper.
Speaker 3:Is that correct? Yeah, look, I write for the PASCAC Press and the Northern Valley Press.
Speaker 2:Okay, and then you've also had other media. You've been interviewed by other people besides me, and I think it's great with the educational part of what you do, because one of the things I hear a lot from people, especially parents, is sleep issues, and I think it could be so debilitating when you're not getting enough sleep how it can permeate everything else about your health. Do you want to touch on that? Are there any other things that you? Okay? Yeah, why don't we want to talk about that for a second?
Speaker 3:Definitely so. With sleep there's a lot of important things, and the biggest problem that I've seen these days is the light. So our sleep is dictated by our circadian rhythms and the circadian rhythms is controlled by sunlight. And what happens is, if you're, if it's eight o'clock at night and people are eating dinner and the TV's on and they're going through their cell phone and the computer's on and they all, they all love this light, light and they're eating there's all this stimulation. Their brain isn't going to be in a relaxed state to get in a deep sleep. So one of the things I recommend my to my patients is to walk outside during sunrise for 10 minutes so your brain sees the sun coming up to give you energy for the day, and then walk outside for 10 minutes during sunset. So when your brain sees the sun going down, now it's time to relax, increase melatonin, decrease cortisol, which is the stress hormone, and then when you get back at home after you walk outside, then you got to turn off all the lights, like dim them down.
Speaker 3:You know, obviously you still want to see, uh, turn off the the lights from the tv and the computer. So you want to get all the stuff that's a lot of stimulation done during the day and the worst thing is like watching the news at night. That's not good because that puts you in stress. And you're watching TV which stimulates the blue light, stimulates cortisol, so you really got to turn off all that stimulation. Even scrolling through Facebook, everyone's worried about the election or inflation and it's like, oh, it's all scary stuff. Or people are going to watch, you know, the zombie apocalypse on netflix. You know, like they're all doing these stimulating activities right before bed. So it's better to do old school let's read a book, you know. Let's play chess. Let's talk to our family, you know, let's you know, play with the dog. Right, exactly so, you know, instead of being on all the electronics at night, that really interrupts the sleep yeah, I mean with daylight savings time and it gets dark by five o'clock, I guess.
Speaker 2:You know, with a family it's tough to say, okay, I'm gonna walk outside and then come in and turn everything down when we haven't had dinner yet. But I, you know it's funny because I'm I'm one of these people who reads his phone before he goes to sleep and I'll fall asleep right away. I can fall asleep within like five minutes. But, um, for the last two weeks I've been waking up around three o'clock in the morning. Then I go downstairs, I go down to the couch, I turn on the tv which I know you're thinking, you're shaking your head right now and then I fall back asleep. I'll turn the tv off and I fall back asleep and I wake back up like 6 30, which I'm like, oh wow, I woke up at 6 30.
Speaker 2:But, um, you know, sometimes I take melatonin. I feel like my body gets used to it and I've got to take more or it's not working anymore. But I know my wife has a very strict um routine because she's had sleep issues and, uh, she adheres to it. I kind of like, well, let me read. This is my chance to read some of the news which I'm reading on my phone and then, or you know, unfortunately I'm a jet fan, so I was reading about Aaron Rodgers, and that's not a good thing to read before you go to bed, but it's interesting. And you've written a book about boosting your brain power, right, is that?
Speaker 3:Yes, yes, so it's boost your brain power, right, is that a yes? Yes, so it's boost your brain power. A guide to improving your memory and focus. So it's the 17 best ways, based on neuroscience, to improve memory and focus.
Speaker 2:Wow. And where can you find out?
Speaker 3:obviously on Amazon, and you could get it on Amazon Just when you put in a boost. Your brain power spell brain power with one word. That way it's easier to find boost your brain power.
Speaker 2:Spell brain power with one word. That way it's easier to find Got it, Got it. Now, who are your like typical patients? If you have one, is there like a ideal or typical patient that you see, or does it kind of run the gamut from students all the way up to, you know, maybe seniors who have, you know, dementia or anything like that?
Speaker 3:Yep, you got it. It's actually we see from zero to a hundred. So we see kids that you know, that can walk and talk, and we get them to walk and talk for the first time. Or just had a father say his son said I love you, and looked him in his eyes for the first time. We have a little kid who was four years old and didn't say a word or didn't walk and within a week we got her speaking and walking again.
Speaker 3:And then we have people with severe dementia, alzheimer's, that come into my office and think it's 1961 and they're in Ecuador and they can't tell me who their son is right next to them. And and we do these intensives where we'll see them for four hours a day. We do like a half hour on a half hour off, half hour on half hour off, and we do that for five straight days and within a week they could tell me oh, it's 2024. This is my son, this is a banana, this is the color red, when in the beginning of the week they couldn't do any of that stuff. So there's lots of hope for people. We just got to work for it. It's a lot of work to get the results, but if you do the work and you follow the neuroscience and you, you know, boost your own brain power, you could keep on improving your memory and it doesn't matter how old you are that's great.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean that those kind of lessons are. You know, you bigitous for a lot of things in life. Right, you do the work, you stick to it. You, you know, you stick to the plan and, and you know, eventually it's kind of like Novocaine, eventually it works journey, and what I hear from a lot of entrepreneurs is that you were inspired early on. You know it was your grandmother. By the way, my mom, her name is, uh, dorothea. People call her Dottie, so it's not too many Dotties in the world anymore. My grandmother was a Dottie, my mom's a Dottie, um, but you know how people are inspired early on, like something in their life uh kind of drove them to be who they are today, and the fact that you're kind of breaking new ground and approaching things from a different angle is really inspiring. So you have two offices You're on Downing Street in Manhattan and also on Kinderkommack Road in Emerson. How could people best reach you if they wanted to take advantage of your new patient special or would you like to come in for an exam?
Speaker 3:Yeah, so we're going to do a new patient special. It's normally $500 to come see me, but for any of your listeners you could get a whole entire evaluation for only $21. You just got to call us or text us. It's 646-221-6738. Or you can email us at info@ KaplanBrainAndBody. com, and if you want to check out our website, it's KaplanDC. com.
Speaker 2:Well, that's great. Well, Dr Kaplan, thank you very much for being a guest on our show. We're going to close it here and we'll be back in just about 20 seconds.
Speaker 3:Thank you.
Speaker 1:Thank you for listening to the Good Neighbor Podcast. To nominate your favorite local businesses to be featured on the show, go to gnpbergen. com. That's gnpbergen. com, or call 201-298-8325.