Our Story
Dr. Jessica Caldwell is a dementia and dementia prevention specialist at Cleveland Clinic. In her work with patients and their families, she hears many of the same questions. Often, patients and care partners apologize for not knowing an answer.
There is a reason the questions are the same and no one knows the answer—there is no single place where patients and care partners can go to learn about dementia, being a care partner, and preventing dementia. Many existing websites, books, and apps also have language that can be hard to understand or answers that can be tough to find among long articles or multiple links.
Dr. Saket Saxena and Dr. Ardeshir Hashmi are geriatric medicine specialists at Cleveland Clinic’s Center for Geriatric Medicine with a shared interest in how technology can help aging patients and their families. Both have found a need to provide their patients and care partners with greater dementia-related resources, and to bring those resources to doctors nationwide.
These doctors joined forces, along with the team from The Women’s Alzheimer’s Movement at Cleveland Clinic, including Erin Stein and Sandy Gleysteen, and program and project managers Nikki Kaplan and Vicki Clarke. Over the course of two years, this team has developed Dementia Path to give patients dementia and caregiving answers in a single place, through easy-to-understand resources. Our work has been shaped by generous and insightful comments from volunteers, including the Neurological Institute Healthcare Partners group, led by Dr. Xin Xin Yu, and the Center for Geriatric Medicine’s Successful Aging group.
Dr. Caldwell was awarded a grant from the Cleveland Clinic Catalyst program—an award that gave them funds to develop the first version of Dementia Path.
Our Team
Jessica Z. K. Caldwell, Ph.D., ABPP/CN
Director and E.L. Wiegand Foundation Chair for the Women’s Alzheimer’s Movement Prevention and Research Center and a dementia and dementia prevention specialist at Cleveland Clinic. Dr. Caldwell earned her AB in Psychology from Princeton University and PhD in Clinical Psychology with a minor in neuroscience at the University of Wisconsin. She completed internship at Harvard University, and postdoctoral fellowship in neuropsychology and neuroimaging at Brown University. She serves as co-Director of the Center for Neurodegeneration and Translational Neuroscience, which is a large center grant from the National Institute for General Medical Studies, as well as Principal Investigator on two NIH R01 grants, Co-Investigator on another R01 grant, and Principal Investigator on several philanthropic grants. She serves on the Executive Committee of the Sex and Gender Professional Interest Area of the Alzheimer’s Association ISTAART, as well as on the editorial boards for Alzheimer’s Research and Therapy and Alzheimer’s & Dementia: Translational Research and Clinical Intervention.
Saket Saxena, M.D.
An Assistant Professor of Medicine and Emergency Medicine at Cleveland Clinic Lerner College of Medicine at Case Western Reserve University and Staff at the Center for Geriatric Medicine at Cleveland Clinic. He is a Co-Director of Cleveland Clinic’s Level 1 Geriatric Emergency room. Dr. Saket Saxena has an extensive background in managing older adults with complex medical needs and has worked in the US and Canada in various capacities. Dr. Saxena had developed best practices to screen older patients for cognitive impairment and implemented uniform cognitive screening protocols throughout Cleveland Clinic Primary Care Institute. He has multiple foundational and NIH/A grants to improve the care of older adults in primary care and the Emergency Department. He has publications in the fields of Cognition, Geriatric Emergency Medicine, Pharmacogenomics, and Interventional Cardiology.
He is a chair of the American Geriatric Society Geriatric Emergency Department Special Interest Group and a member of The Alzheimer’s Association International Society to Advance Alzheimer’s Research and Treatment (ISTAART) committee on Technology and Dementia
Dr. Ardeshir Z. Hashmi MD, FACP, FNAP, AGSF
Dr. Hashmi completed a two-year postdoctoral research fellowship at Yale University. He completed his Internal Medicine residency at the Yale-Saint Mary’s Hospital in Connecticut, where he served as Chief Medical resident. He then trained at Massachusetts General Hospital as a Clinical and Research Fellow in Geriatrics before becoming Faculty and then Medical Director of MGH Senior Health-Harvard Medicine. Dr. Hashmi subsequently transitioned to the Cleveland Clinic.
He is a Fellow of the American Geriatrics Society, the American College of Physicians and the National Academies of Practice, a graduate of the Clinical Process Improvement Leadership Program and the Value Based Healthcare Delivery program via the Harvard Business School Institute of Strategy& Competitiveness. Dr. Hashmi is also certified as an Advanced Peer Coach through the Cleveland Clinic Center for Excellence in Coaching and Mentoring. He is Co-Chair of the national American Geriatrics Society (AGS) Patient Priorities Care and Health Systems Leadership (HSL) Special Interest Groups (SIG) and serves on the AGS Health Systems Innovation Economics & Technology Committee and the Society for General Internal Medicine’s Geriatrics Commission.
Dr. Hashmi is also member of the Association of Chiefs and Leaders in General Internal Medicine (ACLGIM). He is an alumnus of the prestigious Tideswell Emerging Leaders in Aging (ELIA) national leadership development program (in conjunction with the American Geriatric Society and the University of California San Francisco) and the ACLGIM LEAD programs. He is also a member of the American College of Healthcare Executives and a National Mentor to the American Hospital Association (AHA’s) Next Generation Leaders Fellowship program.
Dr. Hashmi’s niche area of interest is the intersection of technology and population health in the service of our most vulnerable populations.
Nikki Kaplan, BA
Nikki Kaplan received her B.A. in Psychology with a minor in Neuroscience from the University of Nevada, Las Vegas.
Victoria A. Clarke, MPH
Victoria received her master’s in public health, with a focus in healthcare management, from Yale University. She was born and raised in New York’s Hudson Valley. A first-generation college graduate, she earned her Bachelor of Arts in Science, Technology, and Society with a correlate in Biology from Vassar College.
Meet our WAM partners
Maria Shriver
WAM Founder and Cleveland Clinic Strategic Partner of Women’s Health and Alzheimer’s
Maria Shriver is a mother of four, an Emmy and Peabody award-winning journalist, a seven-time New York Times best-selling author, an NBC News Special Anchor and the founder of The Women’s Alzheimer’s Movement.
Alexandra Gleysteen, MAG, CG
Alexandra (Sandy) Gleysteen is an award-winning television journalist and media executive with extensive experience in television news, documentaries, and storytelling. A veteran of both NBC and CBS Networks, she is Executive Producer for the Women’s Alzheimer’s Movement at Cleveland Clinic, the pre-eminent non-profit organization for women and Alzheimer’s, founded by Maria Shriver. Gleysteen oversees content, as well as digital and live programming, with a special focus on women’s health, Alzheimer’s research and prevention, wellness, health equity and many of the issues facing an aging world.
Gleysteen has a Master’s degree in Gerontology from the Leonard Davis School of Gerontology at USC, as well as a graduate Certificate in Gerontology. She graduated from Yale University with a BA in comparative literature before embarking on a lively and successful career in journalism and, more recently, in non-profit work.
Erin Mulcahy Stein
Executive Director of WAM at Cleveland Clinic
Erin Mulcahy Stein is a lawyer and strategic consultant for nonprofits. She currently serves as the Executive Director of the Women’s Alzheimer’s Movement (WAM) at Cleveland Clinic where she manages the organization’s programs, partnerships and fundraising efforts. Prior to her role with WAM, Erin served as the Executive Director of A Woman’s Nation, the nonprofit organization founded by Maria Shriver dedicated to improving the lives of women and their families. Erin was the President of the California Governor and First Lady’s Conference on Women producing the annual conference focused on women’s physical, emotional. mental, and financial health. Erin is a member of the California Task Force on Alzheimer’s Prevention and an advisor to The Alliance to Improve Dementia Care.
As a lawyer, Erin’s practice has included both entertainment and general business litigation. Erin has served on the Board of Directors of several nonprofit organizations including United Friends of the Children and Equality Now. Erin attended Stanford University and UC San Diego and received her JD from the University of San Diego School of Law.
Frequently Asked Questions
Do I need to become a member?
You do not need to be a member to read our information and watch our videos about the basics of the dementia journey. If you want to have access to live and recorded online presentations by our doctors, or open question times with our doctors, you will need to make an account to be a member.
How do I contact Dementia Path?
The best way to reach Dr. Caldwell’s team is to email womenpreventalz@ccf.org.
Can I donate to Dementia Path?
If you would like to support the work of the doctors who created Dementia Path, please follow one of these links:
