A federal advisory council on dementia care is pushing for the first ever National Alzheimer’s Plan, which aims to diagnose dementia earlier through family input. According to CBS News, the new plan would require more screenings for warning signs and regular checks of the physical and mental health of caregivers.
The plan is the brainchild of Dr. Laurel Coleman, a geriatric physician at Maine Medical Center, and some of her colleagues. Coleman says family input is the only true way of knowing how a person is coping with dementia as patients are rarely asked the right questions by doctors.
“So often I hear, ‘The doctor only asks my mom how she is. She says fine and it’s over,’” Coleman said. “That’s not dementia-capable, or dementia-aware, primary care.”
Instead, family input ought to be mandatory, she said. Family members know whether or not a loved one is really eating or taking his or medicine, despite claims made to the doctor.
New screenings ought to be done as well, Coleman said. Cognitive screening, now paid for by Medicare, would allow doctors to determine which patients ought to be referred for more extensive brain exams.
Together, these practices would allow doctors to direct families toward advanced-care planning and early diagnosis, which in turn allows a patient to make decisions about their future while still capable of doing so.
According to CBS, more than five million Americans are now believed to have Alzheimer’s or other forms of dementia, though many have not been diagnosed. And those statistics are only on the rise. As a significant portion of society ages, that number is expected to reach up to 16 million by 2050.
