When a primary care provider hears that a patient is experiencing word-finding difficulty or memory loss or difficulty getting things done, they really should set up a problem-focused visit to evaluate that, not just attribute it to stress or age or sleep disturbance. Set it up as a problem and evaluate it in a specific way, ideally getting the perspective of the spouse or someone else who knows the person well...
When a primary care provider hears that a patient is experiencing word-finding difficulty or memory loss or difficulty getting things done, they really should set up a problem-focused visit to evaluate that, not just attribute it to stress or age or sleep disturbance. Set it up as a problem and evaluate it in a specific way, ideally getting the perspective of the spouse or someone else who knows the person well. And if there are questions, which there often are, consider a referral to a neuropsychologist for a neuropsychological assessment or to a specialist neurologist or geriatric psychiatrist for a specialty evaluation. At this point in time, we don’t think that the new disease-modifying therapies for Alzheimer’s disease are possible for primary care clinicians to administer safely and effectively. So those are really subspecialty care treatment options that I think are motivating a lot of people to get those evaluations done because they’re most effective at an early stage.
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