How is Alzheimer’s Disease and Dementia Diagnosed?

[@FashionLover990]

He Melissa - thank you for your incredibly helpful videos. Apologies if you have already covered this topic - feel free to direct me to your video on this topic, if so. My father lost his vision from glaucoma approximately 2 years ago, then was diagnosed with Alzhimers earlier this year. The assessments you cover seem to depend significantly on someone being able to use their vision. Do you have experience with assessing and supporting people who no longer have their vision? We also recently lost my Mom/his wife, about 2 months after his diagnosis and I definitely saw the impacts of grief and trauma on his cognition. I've tried to support him in coming back from this as much as possible through anxiety medication and grief counselling, and am open to any suggestion for other options to support him through this incredibly challenging time of our lives.

[@MelissaBPhD]

Hi @FashionLover990, I don't have any content on supporting a person with vision loss but it's funny you mentioned it, because I had this thought yesterday. I will look into this and try to get something together over the next few weeks. I'm also launching a new "library" next week called AgeWiseU, where I've organized all of my content. If you're not on my email list, visit MelissaBPhD.com and sign up and you'll get information on joining that starting next Tuesday 3/19. As for grief and loss, right now, I only have 1 episode (that I can think of) on that topic - you can find that video here: melissabphd.com/ep-121-grief-and-loss-during-the-holidays/ Thank you for listening and for your comment/ questions! Sorry for the delay in getting back to you ~ launching this library has been a heavy lift, but it's almost ready to debut!

[@gofaux2007]

When you mention “seeing your provider” should that be an Internist or a neurologist?

[@MelissaBPhD]

@@gofaux2007 - I would start with primary care/ internal medicine for screening and ruling out other causes. They may then refer to a neurologist or neuropsychiatrist for a more in-depth assessment.

[@MelissaBPhD]

True that the screenings have to take functional and sensory changes (like vision loss, manual dexterity, etc). They are screening tools, not diagnostic. And he should be evaluated for depression. If your primary care provider takes the time to do an in-depth social history, runs labs, etc, they should be able to decide if they should start treating the depression and see if his cognition improves. Depression can look like dementia, so would be worth having him evaluated and try an antidepressant for a few months to see if it helps. Thanks for the comment - I have no idea why I didn’t see this before, so my apologies for the delay

[@shannonlindemer9781]

There is actually a MoCA for vision-impaired individuals, which is entirely verbal and auditory.