South Africa is a multi-cultural country with a myriad of beliefs and practices. The use of traditional medicine and healers is a socially accepted practice amongst some cultures in the country, with the belief that the cause of some conditions/diseases/misfortune (especially mental, emotional and neurological conditions) is social (Mkhonto & Hanssen, 2018). Traditional healers are believed to be able to diagnose and treat conditions caused by social misconduct, spirits, spells and witchcraft where biomedicine is unable to ‘identify’ and treat (Audet et al., 2017). Traditional healers speak the local languages of the person seeking help, they often live within close proximity, they are easily available for consultation and they are believed to spend more time explaining diagnoses, causes and treatments to patients – hence preferred over mainstream biomedical approaches or used in conjunction with bio-medicine (Audet et al., 2017). A review of studies on plants used to treat Alzheimer’s disease in South Africa has found the following plants used to treat memory loss in the form of aqueous or ethanol extracts (Stafford et al., 2008), (see p. 533 for more detail):

• Malva parviflora (leaves),
• Boophone disticha (L.f.) Herb. (leaves and bulbs),
• Albizia adianthifolia (Schumach.) W. Wright (stem bark),
• Albizia suluensis Gerstner (root bark) and
• Crinum moorei f. (bulbs) for acetylcholinesterase (AChE) inhibitory activity.

References:

Audet, C. M., Ngobeni, S., Graves, E., & Wagner, R. G. (2017). Mixed methods inquiry into traditional healers’ treatment of mental, neurological and substance abuse disorders in rural South Africa. PLoS ONE, 12(2), 1–14. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0188433

Mkhonto, F., & Hanssen, I. (2018). When people with dementia are perceived as witches. Consequences for patients and nurse education in South Africa. Journal of Clinical Nursing, 27(1–2), e169–e176. https://doi.org/10.1111/jocn.13909

Stafford, G. I., Pedersen, M. E., van Staden, J., & Jäger, A. K. (2008). Review on plants with CNS-effects used in traditional South African medicine against mental diseases. Journal of Ethnopharmacology, 119(3), 513–537. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jep.2008.08.010