What does the medical evaluation involve?
Based on your initial evaluation, your doctors might conduct a medical examination if they believe there might be a serious underlying cause triggering your cognitive problems. This examination involves cardiovascular and respiratory tests to confirm that your heart and lungs are in good condition. Also a neurological examination is performed to make sure that there's nothing else affecting the nervous system, such as a stroke, Parkinson's disease or brain tumor.
Physicians will also do a mental status exam. Petersen says he will ask his patients to do brief mental exercises in the office by asking questions like: "What's the date? Where are we? Try to remember these numbers. Here are a few words to remember." Petersen also asks patients to solve math problems to help him gage their mental function.
The next step is laboratory testing that can eliminate other medical causes, like abnormal blood counts, thyroid function, vitamin B12 level deficiencies. All of which can alter your thinking ability and memory. A CT scan or an MRI scan of the brain may also be performed to see if there's any physical evidence of a stroke, tumor, blood clots or, more importantly, if the actual size of the brain has decreased and no longer corresponds with the person’s age. If the shrinkage is significant it implies that there might be a degenerative process.
