Checks
An overview of when and how to bring memory concerns to a doctor, what tests exist, and how to prepare for the appointment.
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When a fuller memory evaluation helps
Most memory worries never need a full evaluation. But some do, and it helps to know which is which before you spend a year fretting in the wrong direction. A full evaluation is more than the five-minute screening at a health fair. It is a longer visit, sometimes two, with what felt like a thorough…
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Medicine review before a memory diagnosis
A woman came up to me after the Thursday coffee hour at the senior centre and said, low, so her sister would not hear, “They’re talking about testing her for Alzheimer’s next month. Should we just get it over with?” She had a tote bag on her arm with a corner of a pill bottle…
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What a memory screening test feels like
Bev sat down across from me at the senior centre with her coat still on, which is not like her. She set a folded square of paper on the table between us like it might be trouble. Her walking group had told her to come see me. A clinic out near the interstate had sent…
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How to raise memory concerns with a doctor
The waiting room at Dr. Okafor’s office has a clock that hums. I sat under it last Tuesday with a woman from the senior centre while she worked up the nerve to say the word memory out loud. She had rehearsed it in the car. She told me the sentence three times, and each time…
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Doctor visits for memory after sixty
Thirty-one. That was the parking garage amount my neighbour Lenore paid last spring to sit in a waiting room for three hours and be told, in seven minutes, that her bloodwork was “within normal limits.” She never got to mention the sleep aid. She never got to mention the cat that had started waking her…