Expert: Mary Gordon - 11/26/2004

Question
What are the latest trends and technologies for the treatment of alzhemiers and the future status of the disease? Can you identify health care professional that specialize in alzheimers? If so, what is their marketing approach?

Answer
Hi Tahoney - I take it this is a question for a school assignment. Here is a link to the latest in Alzheimer's news and other information:
http://www.alz.org/News/overview.asp

We have a long way to go to understand Alzheimer's. We still don't fully understand what causes the illness, other than we know there is both a genetic and an environmental component. We also can't prevent or stop the disease. The best we can do right now is slow it down. It is still a fatal disease, and kills most of its victims within 3-7 years of diagnosis.

Generally, the health care professionals who specialize in dementias like Alzheimer's are either neurologists or psychiatrists with a geriatric specialty. Also involved are psychometrists who can do testing for cognitive and perceptual deficits.


The usual drill is for a person to first see their family doctor. The doctor can do a quick screen for cognitive impairments, but must also do a good physical exam and order some tests to rule out some common causes of confusion other than things like Alzheimer's. Once things like thyroid problems, drug interactions or reactions, B12 deficiency etc. are ruled out, the person is usually sent to a neurologist or psychiatrist who will order other tests and do further examinations. Examples include CAT or MRI scans looking for signs of strokes or tumours, examinations looking for signs of depression etc. The person is often sent to the psychometrist to determine the extent and type of deficits they may have, since there are characteristic patterns to certain progressive dementias. Generally, only after ruling out everything else it might be is a diagnosis of Alzheimer's made.

I don't know what you mean by "marketing approach". These types of medical professionals are in demand and good ones are scarce, so I don't think they need to market their services at all - there are sadly more patients out there needing diagnosis than there are good doctors to provide it.

Can you clarify what you mean?

Mary G.