Cindy Barton received her basic nursing education at Mary Hitchcock Memorial Hospital in Hanover, New Hampshire. She then went on to get her bachelor of science degree in nursing at UCSF and her master of science degree in nursing from Duke University. She is certified as a gerontological nurse practitioner by the American Nurses Credentialing Center.

Her career has included clinical and management positions in the acute setting and primary care management in the long-term care setting.

Ms. Barton is involved in evaluating patients at the San Francisco Veterans Administration Medical Center's Memory Disorders Clinic and the UCSF Memory and Aging Center Clinic, as well as coordinating a quality improvement project in the SFVA Nursing Home to improve the diagnosis and management of patients with dementia. She speaks in the community on the topics of cognition in the elderly, cognitive assessment and non-pharmacological management of behavior problems in dementia.