How do you measure a person’s change in cognitive abilities?
Dr. Larry Lawhorne discusses how testing can measure a change in someone’s cognitive abilities. Click play to watch the video or read the transcript.
One of the important things about Alzheimer's disease and other dementias is to know what the person’s function was before they had the symptoms that send them to the doctor. When we think about dementia, we should think of it as an acquired cognitive disorder. People who have attention deficit or dyslexia, it’s very important to know that. It’s very important to know that baseline. That’s where neuropsychological testing can help determine which functions or lack of function is new and how much existed before. It is extremely important to know a person’s function before family and others started worrying about memory and other thinking problems.
