Are There Medical Tests For Dementia

Is There A Test To Detect Dementia Early

Its important to know that screening for dementia takes time. It cant be done in a single test. A qualified healthcare professional will likely do a number of mental and physical assessments as part of the diagnostic process.

As theres no cure for dementia, you may wonder why getting a professional diagnosis is so important. While a diagnosis of dementia is life-changing the earlier diagnosis happens, the more effective treatments are likely to be at managing symptoms, and potentially slowing down the progression of some symptoms.

An accurate diagnosis can also be an important step in ensuring people get the support they need from emotional and community support, to home adaptations that can make daily life easier.

What Are Options For Further Assessment And Diagnosis

If a primary care doctor suspects mild cognitive impairment or possible Alzheimers, he or she may refer you to a specialist who can provide a detailed diagnosis, or you may decide to go to a specialist for further assessment. You can find specialists through memory clinics and centers or through local organizations or referral services. Specialists include:

• Geriatricians, who manage health care in older adults. They know how the body changes as it ages and whether symptoms indicate a serious problem.
• Geriatric psychiatrists, who specialize in the mental and emotional problems of older adults and can assess memory and thinking problems
• Neurologists, who specialize in abnormalities of the brain and central nervous system and can conduct and review brain scans
• Neuropsychologists, who can conduct tests of memory and thinking

Memory clinics and centers, including Alzheimers Disease Research Centers, offer teams of specialists who work together to diagnose the problem. Tests often are done at the clinic or center, which can speed up diagnosis.

You may also want to get a second opinion. Diagnosis of memory and thinking problems can be challenging. Subtle signs and symptoms may be overlooked or unclear. Getting a second opinion helps confirm the diagnosis. Most doctors understand the benefit of a second opinion and will share your records if you permit. A specialist can refer you to another doctor for a second opinion, or you may decide to find one yourself.

How To Cope With Senior Memory Loss

It is difficult for most seniors to accept gradual memory loss. There will likely be anger and denial, and these emotions are entirely normal. To deal with the negative emotions, seniors need a sense of purpose, they need to be reassured that they still matter.

Either on their own or with a caregiver, there are a number of activities that may help seniors ease the pain of memory loss:

The more severe the memory loss, the greater the danger of withdrawing from friends and loved ones. That will only worsen any memory loss problem. Said friends, family, and/or caregivers should encourage participation in the above activities. They can be fun, and they will continue to provide needed brain stimulation.

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Key Features Of Dementia

A person having dementia means that all five of the following statements are true:

• A person is having difficulty with one or more types of mental function. Although its common for memory to be affected, other parts of thinking function can be impaired. The 2013 DSM-5 manual lists these six types of cognitive function to consider: learning and memory, language, executive function, complex attention, perceptual-motor function, social cognition.

• The difficulties are a decline from the persons prior level of ability. These cant be lifelong problems with reading or math or even social graces. These problems should represent a change, compared to the persons usual abilities as an adult.

• The problems are bad enough to impair daily life function. Its not enough for a person to have an abnormal result on an office-based cognitive test. The problems also have to be substantial enough to affect how the person manages usual life, such as work and family responsibilities.

• The problems are not due to a reversible condition, such as delirium, or another reversible illness. Common conditions that can cause or worsen dementia-like symptoms include hypothyroidism, depression, and medication side-effects.

• The problems arent better accounted for by another mental disorder, such as depression or schizophrenia.

The Sage Test For Dementia

A few years ago the Self-Administered Gerocognitive Examination test was reported in the UK press as a 15 minute at home test for dementia. The test was developed in America by the Wexner Medical Center at Ohio State University, and is not widely used in the UK.

The test is a simple pen and paper test used to identify potential problems with cognition. The test is split into six sections assessing orientation, language, abstract thinking, visuospatial skills, problem-solving, and memory issues.

Its important to emphasise that any at-home assessments or quiz you do to test your thinking skills should only be done as supporting evidence to share with your doctor. They are not a means of ruling out or diagnosing dementia yourself.

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Clinical Tests For Alzheimers & Dementia

Montreal Cognitive Assessment

The Montreal Cognitive Assessment is also 30 questions, like the MMSE above, and takes about 10 minutes. The MoCA includes the Clock Drawing Test and also has questions and small tasks to assess someones understanding of time and place, as well as their short-term memory and ability to concentrate. MoCA is similar to the MMSE but about 30 years newer. Studies have shown MoCA is more reliable for identifying dementia, and better at identifying early-stage dementia or mild cognitive impairment. The MoCA is also better at indicating dementia in people with Parkinsons disease. The test is meant to be administered and scored only by a doctor, and is harder to find online than the MMSE.

Mini-Mental State Exam

While originally designed to be administered by medical professionals, family members can now administer the MMSE using their phone or laptop and receive accurate scoring results. Start here.

The SLUMS

What Conditions Can Be Mistaken For Dementia

There are a number of medical conditions that may cause dementia like symptoms. Many of these conditions are treatable too.

Mental health conditions and stress can sometimes lead to memory loss and confusion. Anxiety for example, can fill a person with worry, which can take over how they think and process information making it more difficult to focus on or remember things.

Depression is also another mental health condition that could be confused for the early signs of dementia. Its estimated that in the UK, depression affects 22% of men and 28% of women over the age of 65. 85% of those receive little to no help for the condition.

Symptoms like low self-esteem, sudden changes in mood, low concentration and memory problems are all things that can be experienced by people living with depression or dementia.

Physical illnesses such as cardiovascular disease, kidney, liver, and lung problems can also produce dementia like symptoms. Very sudden changes in behaviour and thinking can sometimes be caused by an infection or brain tumour both are often treatable when caught early.

A change in someones vision or hearing may cause them to lose things more easily, bump into things at home, or struggle with conversation so its important to test these senses regularly.

To rule out these causes of dementia-like symptoms, your GP may choose to run some blood tests and take a thorough look at your medical history.

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How To Help Reduce The Risk Of Dementia

While there’s no surefire way to completely prevent dementia, healthy lifestyle choices make a big difference in decreasing the chances. Will Donnelly, Care Expert and Co-Founder at Lottie says, “The greatest known risk factor for developing dementia is increasing age with your risk doubling every five years after you reach 65. Whilst dementia isn’t a natural part of ageing, some risk factors like the ageing process as a whole are difficult to change. However, leading a healthy, balanced, and active lifestyle as you age can help to decrease your risk of developing dementia.

Here are 4 steps you can take to reduce your risk of dementia:

Stay active

There is strong evidence that regular, physical activity is one of the best ways to lower your risk of developing dementia.

Try to do at least 150 minutes of moderate exercise every week finding little ways to move more throughout the day can make all the difference including taking the stairs instead of the lift and walking to the shops instead of driving or using public transport.

Eat well

Eating a balanced diet full of fresh fruit and vegetables is also known to reduce your risk of dementia, as well as heart disease and cancer. Where possible, try to eat less red meat in your diet, eat more fish and limit the amount of salt in your foods.

Avoid smoking

Reduce your alcohol intake

There is lots of evidence that shows a higher consumption of alcohol increases your risk of developing dementia.

Discuss Test Results With A Doctor

Dont assume that the test results are equal to a diagnosis of any kind.

The SAGE test is a screening tool that helps doctors detect early signs of cognitive impairment that are typically not noticeable during a normal office visit.

When the test is repeated over time, doctors can watch for changes in cognitive ability. Being able to measure changes helps them detect and treat health conditions early.

Thats why its important to bring the completed test to the doctor to have it reviewed. If there are signs of cognitive impairment, they may recommend further testing.

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Diagnosing Dementia During The Pandemic

The Covid-19 pandemic was a challenging time for all areas of health care. One of the areas that isnt talked about as much is what happened to some aspects of routine care. For example, people being assessed for a diagnosis of dementia in a memory clinic. Before the pandemic, a typical assessment for dementia would include a detailed face-to-face history and examination with the patient, brain scans, blood tests, and a face-to-face memory and thinking test. During the pandemic, much of these face-to-face parts were replaced by telephone interviews and assessments.

I was one such doctor trying to grapple with a mixture face-to-face and telephone or video call based assessments with patients and their carers. During the pandemic, I used remote consultations on a daily basis to help me communicate sometimes very difficult conversations with relatives and loved ones. This was one of the aspects of my work I found most difficult during the pandemic.

Lots Of Tools But Little Evidence

We found there was a wide range of such tests available, but not many studies had assessed the same test. This made it difficult to put the findings of these studies together , to work out how accurate these tools are to help diagnose dementia.

One of the most common tests used over the phone is called the Modified Telephone Interview for Cognitive Status or TICS-m for short. This test is used around the world for both research studies and in the clinic to help diagnose dementia remotely. This was also the same test I was using to assess my patient 267 miles away. One of the most surprising results from this review for me was the lack of studies that met our criteria to be included in this review. In our review, we were only able to include one studyAn investigation of a healthcare problem. There are different types of studies used to answer research questions, for example randomised controlled trials or observational studies. which assessed the TICS-m, but this study did not provide any measures of test accuracy, that is how good it is at diagnosing dementia. This made me think about how widely many of these remote assessment tools are used around the world but how surprisingly little evidence there is for us to do so!

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You Can Spot Dementia Years Earlier With This 30 Minute Logic Test

A simple logic test that takes just 30 minutes might be pivotal with spotting dementia almost a decade before symptoms start. Cambridge scientists published a recent study funded by the Medical Research Council with support from the NIHR Cambridge Biomedical Research Centre in Alzheimer’s& Dementia: The Journal of the Alzheimer’s Association that included about 500,000 UK patients between the ages of 40 to 69 that tested their cognitive skills, reaction times and grip strength. The results showed that, “Cognitive and functional decline is detectable many years before diagnosis in all major dementias and neurodegenerative disease,” the study’s senior author Dr. Timothy Rittman Tweeted.

Dementia is a crippling brain disorder that can affect your cognitive functions like memory, thinking, problem solving, judgment and more so severely that life as you know it has totally changed. It can rob you of performing everyday tasks and your normal routine. According to the World Health Organization, over 55 million people worldwide are living with the condition “and there are nearly 10 million new cases every year.” While dementia primarily affects people over 65, it’s not a normal part of aging and younger people can also get the disorder.

Do I Have Dementia 3 Minute Dementia Quiz

https://www.psycom.net/dementia-test/

The clock test is a non-verbal screening tool that may be used as part of the assessment for dementia, Alzheimerâs, and other neurological problems. The clock test screens for cognitive impairment. The individual being screened is asked to draw a clock with the hour and minute hands pointing to a specific time.

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Comparison Table Of Dementia Tests

What The Cambridge Study Means For Patients

According to Dr. Giordano, “Deficits in test performance reveal domains and dimensions of decreased cognitive capability that may be indicative of early stages of dementing disorders. This is useful because it may allow patients to work with clinicians to foster improved memory and decision making skills that can compensate for such deficits, and may also allow early intervention utilizing currently available drugs, and perhaps novel neurotechnologies such as transcranial magnetic or electrical stimulation, and even possibly forms of implantable brain computer interfaces) that may become increasingly viable and valuable for treating cognitive decline.”

The study’s first author, Nol Swaddiwudhipong, said: “When we looked back at patients’ histories, it became clear that they were showing some cognitive impairment several years before their symptoms became obvious enough to prompt a diagnosis. The impairments were often subtle, but across a number of aspects of cognition.” He added, “This is a step towards us being able to screen people who are at greatest risk for example, people over 50 or those who have high blood pressure or do not do enough exercise and intervene at an earlier stage to help them reduce their risk.”

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Why Diagnosis Is Important

Some people feel like they’d rather not know if they have dementia if there’s no cure available at this time. However, there are several benefits of an early diagnosis.

Even though receiving a dementia diagnosis is difficult, it can also help explain why you’ve been having a harder time with your memory or decisions. Some people report feeling relief in knowing the cause of these symptoms.

There’s also a benefit to knowing about your dementia so you can take the opportunity to make decisions for your future and communicate them to those around you.

Common Warning Signs To Look Out For Include:

• A change in your thinking abilities that impacts your daily life.

• Difficulty performing daily tasks that youve been able to do in the past.

• Feeling disorientated when it comes to time and place.

• Poor judgement or finding it difficult to make decisions.

• Misplacing things or thinking people are moving things without telling you.

• Finding it more difficult to communicate.

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The Clock Test For Dementia

This is a commonly recognised test for impaired thinking or cognitive decline. It involves drawing a clock on a blank sheet of paper adding the numbers in the correct places, and drawing the clock hands indicating a specific time.

The drawing is judged on a number of criteria

• How well the person drew the circle i.e is it round, or does it veer off to one side

• Have they written all the numbers from 1 -12, in the right order?
• Are all the numbers on the clock face and in the right place and spaced fairly evenly?
• Did they draw both the hour and minute hand on the clock?
• Are the hands pointing to the time they were asked to draw?

The clock test has long been a quick screening tool for dementia with an accuracy between 59% and 85%. However, the clock test cannot distinguish between different forms of dementia. Its also worth noting that some illnesses and medication can make it difficult to complete the clock test accurately too. Being unable to complete the task wont always point to a dementia causing disease.