Brent W. Beasley, M.D., 58, was diagnosed with younger-onset Alzheimer's disease in 2023.

Brent was born and raised in Tulsa, Oklahoma. After graduating from Baylor University in 1988, he completed his medical doctorate at the University of Oklahoma College of Medicine, an Internal Medicine residency at the University of Oklahoma–Tulsa, and a fellowship in General Internal Medicine at Johns Hopkins in 1997. He earned his M.B.A. from Baker University in 2016. For more than three decades, he worked as a general internist treating older patients, some of whom were living with dementia.

In 2022, during the COVID pandemic, Brent's family first noticed cognitive changes when he struggled to play a new board game on vacation. He and his family initially attributed it to brain fog following his bout with the virus, but the challenges persisted. As a church deacon, he struggled to recall directions for assisting his Bishop during a service, and staff at his medical practice noticed he was repeating himself with patients.

Brent contacted a colleague in neurology, who referred him to the KU Memory Center. After cognitive testing, an MRI, and an amyloid PET scan, he was diagnosed with younger-onset Alzheimer's and retired from medical practice.

Working with his neurologist, Brent decided to pursue recently FDA-approved treatments for early-stage Alzheimer's. After a stressful process to secure insurance approval, he began receiving Lecanemab (Leqembi™) in the summer of 2023. His experience navigating the system convinced him that access to dementia care and treatment needs to be easier, and that annual cognitive assessments matter because earlier detection is a significant benefit now that effective treatments exist.

Brent has been open about his diagnosis with family, friends, his church, and the medical field, publishing an article in the Journal of General Internal Medicine on his life with Alzheimer's. In it, he also writes about watching his father die from the disease at age 82. Since his diagnosis, he has developed a new relationship with his local Alzheimer's Association chapter, which has been a valuable resource and source of support for him and his wife.

As a member of the 2024–2025 National Early-Stage Advisory Group, Brent encourages others living with Alzheimer's and other dementias to build strong support networks and not let the disease define them.

Brent and his wife Cindy live in Kansas City, Missouri. They have three adult children and two grandchildren.