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About Dr. Rex Anderson
It seems perfectly logical that the young Rexford Kosciusko Anderson, Junior -- named, as his father was before him, and his father before that, after Thaddeus Kosciusko, the courageous Polish general and patriot who helped fight the British at West Point during the Revolutionary war -- would grow up to be fearless in his chosen field. Along with a natural affinity for risk, Rexford Anderson, Jr., like his father, who was an engineer managing a critical catalytic cracking unit for Pure Oil in Beaumont, Texas, had a keen mind for detail, and for solving complex, labyrinthine problems.
As a boy, Anderson was drawn to games of intellect and logic. He is the oldest of two, born in 1942 in Port Arthur, Texas, while his father was fighting with the American army in World War II. By the time he was in high school, Anderson had developed an acuity for the game of chess, and was one of the top players - as well as the youngest -- on the city's chess team. He also enjoyed a vigorous debate, and was a member of the French High School debate club, as well as the tennis team. Otherwise, Anderson devoured the sci-fi novels of Keninlien, Asimov, Bradbury and writers of mysteries and detective tales, and found his home in the rational world of science, chemistry and numbers. In 1960, he graduated first in his class at French High School in Beaumont.
Although he was offered an academic scholarship to Rice University in Houston, because it didn't include the cost of room and board, Anderson chose Lamar State College of Technology (now Lamar University) in Beaumont instead. He received scholarships from Lamar State and he lived at home while taking an average of 21 hours each semester. He graduated in 1964 with a bachelor of science in biology and a minor in chemistry.
Anderson doesn't remember when, exactly, he decided to become a physician, but, naturally for him, he decided to specialize in the science of the mind.
During his four-year medical school tenure at the University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston, Anderson first studied psychiatry, and spent one summer in an externship at the Cassel Hospital for Functional Neurosis at Ham Common, just outside of London, England. The Cassel Hospital was a training ground for future Freudian psychoanalytically oriented psychiatrists. Anderson soon concluded that the Freudian psychoanalytic model, although having merit, was a difficult and entirely too prolonged method of treatment, producing questionable and difficult to maintain results. Plus, much of the psychiatric treatment at that time was very difficult, as well as limited. "You had heavy drugs and electric shock," said Anderson. "And with psychopathology, you can study how people interact, but you can do little about it. Another medical specialty involving the area of the brain function might, from my standpoint, offer a wider range of patient treatment options."
Still attracted to the processes that drive mental functioning, Anderson decided to specialize in what was then the nascent field of neurology, which was under the school's department of psychiatry. He wasn't intimidated by the scant number of neurology residents per year that the school turned out; nor did he listen to those who said that neurology wasn't any fun. "Neurology has always been thought of as a depressing specialty - brain tumors and MS and all kinds of untreatable degenerative diseases," he said. "But the question was, 'How much can you really help patients with neurological diseases?' You can really help, or ameliorate, patients' problems in 85% of the cases through medication and other types of intervention. "
Anderson graduated after four intense years, then moved to Salt Lake City, Utah, for his internship at LDS Hospital, and then, his Neurology residency at the University of Utah College of Medicine. He was just one year from completing his residency when he was drafted into the Army and shipped to Fort Campbell, Kentucky, home of the 101st Airborne Division, known as the Screaming Eagles.
The armed services detour, it turns out, allowed Anderson to explore an area of psychiatric treatment that he had been fascinated by since he was a little boy, and one that is still viewed with some skepticism today. The Army sent Anderson to learn about hypnosis, and for two years, he honed his skills on his patients who had fears, phobias, sexual problems and other symptoms which none of his medications would treat effectively. "It's like doing surgery on the mind," said Anderson, who enjoyed the quick solution aspect of hypnosis. "You determine where the problem came from, go find it, and get rid of it by tapping into the subconscious."
In 1973, he returned to Salt Lake City to finish his last year of neurology residency at University of Utah College of Medicine. The next year, he moved to Abilene, Texas, and opened his practice. Before he arrived, he was booked several weeks in advance.
He hasn't slowed down since. Today, thirty years later, Anderson is just as fascinated by the brain as he was as a child. "Neurology is diagnostic. I am frequently the fourth or fifth physician consulted for the patient's so far undiagnosed problem," he said. "I'm a problem-solver. I like problems, and I enjoy the challenge of figuring out what the diagnosis is, and, if at all possible, piecing together a treatment solution. I don't give up easily."
Over the years, Anderson has treated a number of older patients with degenerative diseases - multiple sclerosis, Alzheimer's, and Parkinson's among them - and always wondered why, as we age, our bodies, and our minds, began to slow down, then deteriorate. In 1990, he read the first of many articles that he would study on the decline of the human growth hormone (hGH), and he felt he'd found at least a partial answer.
"You catch a cold, a sore throat, and you get fever, chills. You know you have something wrong with you. You get antibiotics, aspirin. It goes away," he said. "When your mind starts to go, you should also realize there's something wrong with you, too. It's not because you're getting older. It's because you have a disease."
Curious to find out more, Anderson has spent the last 14 years doing research into what has become known as anti-aging medicine, a term which he's not fond of (he prefers "age management"). "You start looking around and it must be something that's internal that you're deficient in, and when someone really looks, the usual finding is the hormone levels are much lower than optimal and dropping lower. As hormone levels decrease with age, overall health and well being suffer. So the question is, if you replace hormones back to their normal levels, do you maintain your health or if you're not very healthy, do you get healthier? The answer is, yes. Chances are, you will, and there's a lot of medical evidence that says you will."
And so, today, in addition to his neurology practice in Abilene, Anderson has just opened the NeuroMedical Institute for Age Management in Dallas, where he hopes to prevent degenerative diseases before they occur. His Dallas practice will focus on restoring patients' hormone levels to their normal, pre-decline levels in order to restore a better quality of life. Hormone therapy will be part of an overall treatment program focusing on total body-mind solutions, which will also include healthy diet and exercise recommendations and nutritional supplements.
I've always liked being on the cutting edge of medicine and this kind of practice is definitely the new frontier," say Anderson. "My approach to medical treatment ash always been, and will always be, very proactive. This practice is unique in its scope and its methods. The individuals who are candidates for this type of health maintenance treatment are those who have a long term view of what they wish to accomplish, in that they want to maintain good health, vitality and an optimal quality of life throughout their entire lifespan. When I began this venture, I realized there were risks involved in attracting patients who were not obviously or consciously ill; but I know that the rewards for a patient committed to this type of treatment program can be tremendous.
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About the Institute
