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Mild cognitive impairment: What questions to ask the neurologist?
Brain & Nervous System | Last Active: Apr 17 10:02am | Replies (85)Comment receiving replies
@sb4ca Mild Cognitive Impairment is indeed a diagnosis that means there has been a change in cognitive functioning that is different from normal aging but is not dementia. Not everyone who is diagnosed with Mild Cognitive Impairment goes on to develop dementia. @tallguy provided very helpful suggestions on how to reorganize your environment at home to support you. Do you have someone at home that will help you with this?
According to your initial post about two days ago you may have already met with your neurologist. Have you had or did your neurologist refer you for neuropsychological testing? This specialized testing will help you to know which cognitive processes are affected and which are not. Neuropsychologists or someone on their team may also be available to you for cognitive rehabilitation. These are the professionals who can look at your test results and help you to figure out the best ways to compensate for what has become more difficult for you over time. A speech-language pathologist who also will be on the time can help you with word retrieval and strategies to help you through those moments where you have forgotten where you were in your conversations.
I am wishing you a good weekend as you prepare for your next steps. What did you learn at your neurology appointment?
Replies to "@sb4ca Mild Cognitive Impairment is indeed a diagnosis that means there has been a change in..."
The speech therapist route is the one that I've taken 1 year post-brain-tumor radiation. She's the one who is teaching me various tools for strengthening memory and cognition. Short-term memory is where I have a "close to disabled" level (82) whereas the other brain measurements are very very good (98+)
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Thank you for this informative response. I meet with my neurologist on Monday. Losing tract of days is apparent here, lol. I've never heard of neuropsychologists and will ask my neurologist about it. I had white matter changes in my brain starting in my 40's and the new MRI says that has progressed due to small vessel disease. I know this because I already have the MRI report. They are in the front of my brain and in the parietal lobes for whatever that's worth. The main 2 errors on the simple cognitive test were the inability to draw a 3-D box and retrieval of the 7 words I was supposed to remember but that is self-evaluation because I knew I failed those. He didn't tell me what specific tests I failed. I am now 64 years old so unclear how much cognitive decline is normal for my age.