Ms. Gearhart received her undergraduate degree in Nursing at the University of Pennsylvania. She began her nursing career at Johns Hopkins Hospital where she worked in acute care. Ms. Gearhart continued working in general medicine at the University of California San Francisco (UCSF) Medical Center where she was nurse manager. She received her Master's in Nursing Administration at UCSF and is certified as a Gerontological Clinical Nurse Specialist by the American Nurses Association Credentialing Center.
Ms. Gearhart is a Clinical Nurse Specialist and the Administrative Nurse for the Memory and Aging Center. She is also Assistant Clinical Professor in the Department of Physiology in the School of Nursing. Ms. Gearhart works with families during the comprehensive diagnostic visits and cares for patients in the follow-up clinic. Ms. Gearhart focuses on optimizing the functional status of each patient and maintaining the quality of life for both the patient and caregivers.
In addition to her clinical work, Ms. Gearhart has coordinated the Alzheimer's Disease Cooperative Study (ADCS) prevention drug trial and focuses her research interests on the study of people at risk for dementia and prevention of decline. She is very interested in investigating the impact of caregiving on families, particularly families involved in the care of frontotemporal dementia patients.
