Alzheimer’s Diagnosis: Identifying Alzheimer’s Disease

admin — Sat, 23 Jan 2010 14:42:22 +0000

Alzheimer’s is quite a difficult disease to diagnose despite it’s quite obvious tell-tale signs such as memory loss. This is in part due to sharing similar traits with other diseases and ailments. Indeed definite diagnosis can only be concluded after death with a brain-biopsy. However with a battery of testing, accuracy rates are around the 80-90% range. Here we take a look at the process behind Alzheimer’s diagnosis.

If you suspect you have Alzheimer’s or you suspect a loved one or a friend has the disease then the appropriate thing to do is to go and see your health care specialist where a thorough medical examination can be carried out along with other procedures to ascertain whether you or your loved one or friend is suffering with Alzheimer’s or not.

During consultation a host of procedures may be carried out such as a complete physical, psychiatric and neuropsychological testing, blood analysis, urine analysis, a chest x-ray, electroencephalography (EEG), computerized tomography (CT scan), electrocardiogram (EKG) and a mental status examination.

This battery testing is carried out to exclude any other or all other Alzheimer’s-like conditions that may be causing memory loss or dementia symptoms such as stroke, HIV or AIDS and Thyroid Deficiency for example.

Once other conditions have been ruled out the next step would be diagnosis to determine the stage or type of the Alzheimer’s disease, commonly called Dementia of Alzheimer’s Type or DAT for short.

Memory Study » Alzheimers diagnosis

Alzheimer’s Diagnosis: Identifying Alzheimer’s Disease