Testing decisions?

Completely agree with M1. In our case, DH had 3 MRIs and EEG (looking for epilepsy) done during his hospital stay, and although MRI showed some frontal temporal shrinkage, it was inconclusive and the battery of tests all came back negative. DH was clinically diagnosed as severe major depressive disorder at this time, not a physical neural problem because of the negative test results. However, with that said, it's important to know what exactly are they looking for. Anyhow, after discharge from the hospital, DH went through 32 sessions of Cognitive Behavior Therapy to no avail. In fact, his mood got increasingly worse. Then we did the neuropsych eval because his newly anointed psychiatrist had suspected some form of dementia like Frontotemporal Dementia due to the shrinkage of frontal temporal region in the brain. The test proved degradation in all reasoning and executive functions. He couldn't even finish one of the tests cuz he couldn't follow the "complex" instructions. A 4 hour test lasted nearly 6 hours. It was confirmed then that he suffered from some form of dementia but didn't know which one. More tests ensued including one more MRI (to determine whether it was a rapid progressive form of dementia due to his fast decline in so many areas) to see how much his brain had shrunk in 10 months, but was nominal. Sadly while he was in the hospital and had undergone a spinal tap, they didn't look for dementia biomarkers, and just looked for possible infection of the brain. So we scheduled an appt to do another spinal tap but the technician quit (what timing?!). We never got it done because his neurologist moved to do a PETScan specifically looking for B-Amyloid plaques. Since none was found, it helped to rule out Alzheimer's Disease in conjunction with other biomarkers. So in looking at DH's overall behavior and physical symptoms, he's finally declared probable Lewy Body Dementia. I share this long story only to highlight that no matter what test is prescribed, it's important to know what exactly are they looking for and how does that help with treatment. Don't be afraid to ask questions. I do think it's important to find out which disease is causing the dementia symptoms in order to provide proper medication care plan.

My DH had an MRI initially which indicated moderate to severe brain atrophy to temporal and parietal lobes.

He had the initial testing and then 4 hours with Neuropsychologists. The diagnosis was MCI concerning Alzheimer's. He begin taking Aricept. That was 2 1/2 years ago.

We talked to our Neurologist about test to determine if it's Alzheimer's. He said the two test were petscan (which back then insurance didn't cover) and the spinal tap. And neither of them was 100%. We decided that DH would not undergo any more testing - it's hard on him - and why did it matter - dementia is dementia and there is no cure.

Good luck with your decision - it is a tough one to make.

My wife had a MRI and CTscan of her brain which were inconclusive the 4 hour neuropsych exam led to the early stage Alzheimer's diagnosis and was the most helpful. We are not pursuing PET or lumbar puncture because we don't believe it will give any more useful information. They are expensive and likely to do nothing more than confirm the neuropsych diagnosis.

Hi all, I am new to the forum, and already appreciate the knowledge and support! My mom is very clearly suffering from MCI and so far, this is all they will diagnose her with, despite the fact that as a family, we see tremendous memory loss. She is a very intelligent, well-educated woman, and still performs extremely well on the short tests like the MiniCog. We would like to have a full neuropsychiatric evaluation, but her geriatrician is reluctant. Two questions. 1) What is the full battery of tests called? 2) Any advice on making this happen? She is willing to take the tests, and if for no other reason, we'd like to have a baseline (as some members above have mentioned). Thank you.

Thank you! Will do!