Dr. Wendy Young is an associate faculty member at Royal Roads University. She is currently teaching and supervising students in the Master’s of Arts in Leadership. In 2013 she moved to the Research and Capacity Building Team at Island Health B.C. from Memorial University, NFLD, where she held a Canada Research Chair in Healthy Aging. Throughout her career she has had the privilege of working with many people passionate about using evidence to improve outcomes for patients, providers and the health care system.
As members of Naut sa Mawt, Young and Kathy Bishop are working with leaders at UBC, VIU and UVic to raise funds to study the feasibility and impact of a treatment for individuals with moderate to severe Alzheimer’s Disease (AD). Based on research on psilocybin’s ability to promote neuronal changes and self-efficacy, this research team hypothesize that an intervention that:
- builds on Indigenous ways of knowing and Western ways of knowing and
- combines psilocybin and lifestyle medicine interventions
will be more efficacious than either intervention alone for individuals with moderate to severe AD. Current best practice for the care of individuals with AD includes lifestyle medicine interventions that promote physical and mental health, social care and support. Eventually, through action-oriented research, the usual care for AD may be changed to include psilocybin.