I loved watching him.
How do they diagnose ‘Alzheimer’s’, anyway?
I remember talking with a doctor back in the early 1990s about the fact that every case of senile dementia was being called ‘Alzheimer’s’. He was uncomfortable with it, too.
Whatever the cause, dementia is horrific.
I’m sitting with a Alzheimer’s patient right now. I work part time as a caregiver. My understanding is that the disease can only be confirmed posthumously by examination of the brain. I guess doctors take an educated guess based on age and symptoms, and after ruling out other causes.
I always heard it cannot be definitely diagnosed until the brain is autopsied. I am sure he has had all kinds of tests but one cause of dementia is low B12 level
Autopsy, however, here are some telltale signs.
About 8 years ago my wife was diagnosed with Alzheimer's by Doctors at Brigham and Women's in Boston.
One of the doctors sat me down nd showed me on screen a normal brain and an Alzheimer's brain, in what he called then a white plane view through he Hippocampus section of the brain.
You can see the white edging starting on an early Alzheimers brain followed in time by the back lobe showing white as all recent memory is lost, and finally the front lobe will whiten as long term memory will be affected.
Now many years later my wife tripped on a curb and hit her head and went by amulbance to the local hospital ER. She did not go to the hospital because of Alzheimers but because of her fall.
Below is a paragraph on the Hospital finding on her fall , and I noticed that doctor also knew about the white plane view. -Tom
"No acute intracranial process or change since December 2020. Extensive cerebral white matter low-attenuation consistent with small vessel disease with associated atrophy. There is significant atrophy of the hippocampus bilaterally suggesting Alzheimer's type dementia as well."