What should you expect in a memory evaluation? A good evaluation doesn’t hurt and you can’t pass or fail. It’s not like going to school. The essence of the evaluation is to determine how your memory and thinking skills are working. You should be comfortable and family members should be able to sit in and add their observations. There are three parts to a thorough evaluation: interview, formal evaluation, and feedback. There are several objectives for an interview about memory. First, the interviewer should put you at ease. Ideally, you and someone who knows you well (in case you forget that you forget) are interviewed at the same time. Part of the interview is to provide background information such as birth date, education, work history, health history, etc. This information also provides an assessment of your long term memory (e.g., […]
Uncategorized
We all hope to remain in the first stage of Alzheimer’s disease, Normal. This is the time during our life when we are free of objective as well as functional decline. This is the stage where senior moments are just senior moments. This is the stage when the efficiency of your memory slows along with everything else. You may need more external memory supports and you may not be able to multitask as well as in the past but you are fully competent and self-directed. If given a rigorous memory evaluation, you will do as well as you ever did. This stage may last all of your life but there are no guarantees. Fifty percent of those living beyond age 85 may not show signs of Alzheimer’s disease. Forgetfulness is the second stage of Alzheimer’s disease. Forgetfulness shows up in […]
The progression of Alzheimer’s disease unfolds over the course of decades. We lose valuable time by ignoring changes in memory and waiting for a medical diagnosis to take action. By the time current medical screenings detect significant decline we have lost years of valuable time and quality of life. We are too conservative about rigorously evaluating memory but appropriately careful about making a medical diagnosis such as Alzheimer’s disease. By treating Alzheimer’s disease as a medical rather than a memory problem, we miss the opportunity to get ahead of the changes and directly treat memory while the mind still works well. We lose the opportunity to build skills we will need to protect our family and ourselves. The unfolding of early Alzheimer’s disease overlaps with normal aging. This process can be described in alternative ways. One way of viewing the […]
“Money Woes Can Be an Early Clue to Alzheimer’s.” This is an attention grabbing headline from the November 4th edition of the New York Times. The point of the article is to inform that complex decision-making may be the first sign of Alzheimer’s that catches attention. We often dismiss mild memory loss as another senior moment rather than a call to action. The changes are so small that complex problem solving is ignored. I once had a client who received attention only after he bought his plane ticket to pick up the $17 million he had won from the publisher’s clearing house. The dilemma is to determine competency. This is a very complex legal issue that faces families, medical professional, financial advisors, and attorneys alike. Financial decisions have important impact on not only the person with Alzheimer’s disease but also […]
Alcohol as a psychotropic agent acts as a sedative, a tranquilizer, an anti-anxiety agent, or a hypnotic as it is a central nervous system depressant. As such, it diminishes environmental awareness, reduces responsiveness to external stimulation, impairs cognitive functioning, hinders coordination, and reduces physical activity. At high doses it induces sedation, lethargy, amnesia, antiseizure activity, and anesthesia. Next to caffeine, alcohol is the second most widely used psychoactive substance in the world. The health-related impact of alcohol consumption can vary depending of the amount and chronic use with its consumption. Heavy ingestion of alcohol over time can lead to a variety of serious physiological and neurological disorders (e.g., vitamin and mineral deficiencies, liver damage, destruction of nerve cells that can induce a dementia, pancreatitis, chronic gastritis, and certain cancers such as tongue, mouth, throat, voice box, liver, stomach, intestinal, breast). […]
Please click on link for more information on my November 16th talk: Beckwith_-_November_16th
An opinion presented in the New York Times by Sandra Day O’Connor, Stanley Prusiner, and Ken Dychtwald (October 28, 2010) presents a plan on “How to resist the coming wave of fatal dementia.” They present sobering facts to make their case. Alzheimer’s is 100% incurable and 100% fatal (100% of us will die but most will not die with Alzheimer’s). There are 5 million cases of Alzheimer’s in the United States today and there will be an estimated 13.5 million cases by 2050. They remind us of the rush of baby boomers that start on January 1st. Further, they state that we cannot avoid Alzheimer’s by medical checkups, exercise, being social, or engaging in stimulating mental activities. Finally, they bemoan the lack of medications that are presently helpful and the limits of the effectiveness of the medications to reverse the […]
My wife recently treated herself to an I-Phone and MacBook Pro computer. She has extended her memory to the internet allowing her to explore ideas, places, and events. She has access to applications (“apps”) that allow her to calculate, argue, plan, and daydream. She can also use these devices as memory collaborators. She can track as well as have auditory reminders for appointments. She can pay bills, organize her life, and record events (pictures and videos) that we want to remember. She is delighted. Her I-Phone and computer work for her in the words of David Chalmers as an “extended mind.” Smart phones and computers serve as memory collaborators for many individuals as well as organizations. They have replaced paper calendars and people whose job it is to remind those for whom they work. On the one hand, they allow […]
I’m presenting a seminar titled, “Remembering What Not to Forget” this Tuesday, October 19th at 10 am. It will be held at the Renaissance Academy at the Atrium in Fort Myers. Call 425-3276 for reservations and directions.
People often remind each other of appointments, words, what to buy, and names. For example, at work there are administrative assistants whose job it is to remember for and remind others. These memory collaborators serve as the backbone of organizations. At home, partners are our memory collaborators. So often my wife helps me find words for which I am searching, reminds me of appointments, helps me recall times I have enjoyed, and what to pick up at the grocery store. She also reduces my memory load by managing the checkbook and finances. As with many married couples it is a symphony of collaborative efforts that makes both of our lives easier as neither of us has to remember everything on our own. For those with memory disorders, the need for memory collaboration is no longer a convenience but becomes a […]
