What Do Memory Centers Have That My Doctor Doesn't?

Why do that? Why have a dedicated center or a dedicated area within a practice to deal with memory loss?

The answer is quite simple. Memory disorders are very common and it is often confusing for families and patients who are experiencing memory disorder or other thinking problems about what they should do, so they may wander from physician to physician. They may call the Alzheimers Association. They may go on the Internet and look for things - but what is really needed is a diagnosis.

Do you really have a memory problem or are you just distracted and anxious? Are you multitasking too much? If you have a memory problem, what is the cause of it? The cause is important because there are treatments for most memory disorders, cures for a few, but treatments for almost all.

Learning which memory disorder you have is very important. We used to think that as we got older some of us got senile. That was a word that was used in the past, but in the 1970s and 1980s, for the first time investigation was carried out to find out what causes senility - why do people become senile, as it were?

The answer was quite startling. It turned out that almost all of the people who had been diagnosed with senility, once they passed away and an autopsy was done, their brains revealed straightforward Alzheimer's disease. So it was not until the 1970s or 1980s that we realized that almost everything we had been calling senility was simply Alzheimer's disease, which kicked off an avalanche of research into that disease, which is just now coming to fruition.

There are several treatments for Alzheimer's disease, all of which we are well versed in at MidAmerica Neuroscience Institute - and there are a number of treatments still under research, just on the cusp of becoming available to the general public. We are heavily involved in that research.

Currently we have several trials of different treatments and medications for Alzheimer's ongoing. Eventually, within the next 5-10 years, we hope to see a cure for Alzheimer's, so it is very important to treat people now and keep them as sharp as possible for the contingency that there may turn out to be a cure in the very near future.

Now, how common is Alzheimer's disease alone? Well, it is estimated that 5-10% of all Americans by age 65 have a diagnosis of Alzheimer's disease. By age 85, almost half of all Americans have a diagnosis of Alzheimer's disease. Therefore, this is one of the most common disorders that exist and it is very likely to touch many families.

I am often asked, "Do you inherit the propensity to get Alzheimer's or other dementias?" The answer is there is a little bit of increased risk if you have a lot of relatives with Alzheimer's and slightly decreased risk if you do not. But the fact is that it is a very common disease.

Alzheimer's is one of several diseases that cause what we term dementia. Dementia is a scary word which simply means you do not think now as good as you used to think.

Alzheimer's can cause this problem, but so can a number of other issues. Hardening of the arteries is an old term for something that we now call vascular dementia. It turns out that it is really not all that common, but it is important to diagnose correctly and at our memory disorders center we are well versed in that. It turns out that just because you have a few strokes on your MRI does not mean that you have vascular dementia or hardening of the arteries. There are certain other criteria that have to be met and through our participation in research, we feel like we are well placed to make that discernment for a patient.

Besides vascular dementia and Alzheimer's, there are many other causes of dementia:

The diagnosis is important and to arrive at this we use very specialized MRI sequences at MidAmerica Neuroscience Institute, looking at certain areas of the brain that are of high interest to us.

We also obtain EEGs, certain lab work and very often, a sleep study is indicated, if the individual has problems with sleep.

Some things can masquerade as dementia: depression. But on the other hand, patients with Alzheimer's and some of these other diseases are prone to depression. It is very important to sort out whether it is depression alone or it is a response to the disease.

Other mimics for dementia include sleep disorders. If you are very very sleep-deprived, you don't think well the next day. If that is your only problem and we correct it, your thinking could be fixed.

Certain vitamin deficiencies, vitamin B12, vitamin E, if significant enough, could cause thinking problems bad enough to be mistaken for dementia and those are correctable and treatable.

Of course, brain tumors, aneurisms, cancer of various kinds, also could cause thinking problems. It is important to find those diagnosis and act on them, in case there is a chance for a cure.

VIDEO & ARTICLE

A free 15-minute self-administered test now screens for early dementia. It could help speed the diagnosis and subsequent treatment of memory disorders, including dementias such as Alzheimer’s disease.

VIDEO + TRANSCRIPT

Dr. Barry Gordon, MD, Ph.D, who is both a behavioral neurologist and cognitive neuroscientist at Johns Hopkins University, answers the question, "What would I do if I had a memory problem?"

Two years after receiving a diagnosis of Alzheimer's, Florence Oppenheimer continues to live a fulfilling life.