Dementia Testing

[Peter Pan]

I was wondering if there was any particular type of dementia testing that you would recommend for anyone that appears to have the early stages of dementia and how one would go about accessing it. Thank you.

[Nurse Ian Weatherhead]

Hi Peter,

A Care Home Manager asked the very same question on our helpline only yesterday!
Although there are a number of assessment tools for dementia, it's not so much about completing the forms, the emphasis is on understanding what the answers and components of testing actually signify and tell us. Assessment tools usually cover subjects such as short term memory, organisational skills, co ordination, understanding information, processing information and responding, to mention a few. Without knowing exactly what each component means they can become pretty meaningless.
We would always advise any testing or screening to be completed by a health professional, and usually a member of the Older Adults Mental Health Team so that results can be fully discussed at a multi disciplinary meeting. A Psychologist may pick something different out of a test requiring further exploration compared to a Psychiatrist, Nurse or Occupational Therapist for instance, so it can become quite a complex process.

Hope this helps!