Alizhmers

[wendy5400]

My aunt was diagnosis with Demetia 2 1/2 years ago. Now another doctor feels she was misdiagnosis.

Is this possible or how can this happen with ct scans and MRI beening taken.

[caregiver222]

Generally there must be memory impairment and severe impairment of one other facet of the personality, such as asphasia, agnosia, or disturbances in executive function.

Dementia may result from anoxia, traumatic injury, vascular impairment, or even nutritional deficiency.

I would not be too hard on the physician who provided the initial diagnosis. There are degrees of impairment, and physicians have but a short window of opportunity to draw conclusions.  A woman I know (she is now 105 years old - not a misprint - 105) was diagnosed with dementia because her son, anxious to get control of her bank acount, threw away her hearing aid (she is deaf in the other ear), removed her glasses, and did not tell the examining physician she could respond quite well to written questions in two-inch high block letters.

An MRI or MRA and CT are not used to diagnose dementia. They may be helpful in establishing the etiology of the dementia.

I would be thankful there has been cognitive improvement and go on from there.

[caregiver222]

One of the reasons this is possible is because of the new program for obtaining medical degrees. You collect two thousand boxtops from a popular breakfast cerial, eat thirty five hot-dogs consecutavely (this is a times exercise) and must obtain a written recommendation from the Dahli Lahma. Descdendants of the Hoola-hi-gee Indian tribe, which inhabited one square kilometer of North Dakota two thousand years ago and claim ownership of the North American continent get dispensation from the requirment to be interviewed by the Dahli Lahma.

Dementia, these days, is a diagnosis that is arrived at through criterion in a manual - the DSM IV. This stands for the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual for Mental disorders.

An examining physician often has but a short time with a patient, and bases his opinions on a "slice of time".  One of the problems is to distinguish between dementia and delerium. Delerium is a temporary state, but while a patient has this problem exhibits characteristics of dementia.

There are, surprisingly, at least eighty different varieties of dementia.When an elderly person experiences mental problems they are often said to "Have Alzheimer's", while this is but one of many possible etiologies. Some forms of demenia, notably Lewy's body Dementia, come and go. A person may have dementia for a day and the next day appear rational.