Misdiagnosis Part 1

For the next few posts, I'm going to be researching other diseases and conditions that have the same or similar symptoms to Alzheimer's. Alzheimer's seems to be the catch all diagnosis over the past few years for almost elderly person who exhibits signs of dementia. The medical community really doesn't know that much about Alzheimer's yet. They can't even tell you for sure if someone has it. The only way to make a positive diagnosis is to perform a brain inspection.... which cannot be done while the patient is still alive. So, really doctors should be testing for the possible conditions that have been and can be misdiagnosed for Alzheimer's.

In our family's situation there was this sudden Alzheimer's diagnosis from Grandma's doctor but he had not done any tests. It seemed like he hadn't investigated it at all. The only things he did were asking her memory types of questions to test her cognitive ability. Here's one for you: count backwards from 100 by 7's. Then there was the standard "who's the president" and "what's today's date." That was it though and no other possible conditions were explored.

Now that Grandma has been back with us she's been getting better over the past year or so. When she first came "home" (her actual house is still not back in her name yet.) she was zombie like. Now she's lively, wants to walk around the yard, makes much more sense when she talks, has moments where she asks directly "How did I get here," and makes statements like "I think there's something wrong with me. I don't remember." Does that sound like Alzheimer's to you? She is getting better, and new doctors think so too. We are working with them to see what we can find and if she can possibly regain more memory. The more we find out from our personal situation, the more we will share with you. Until then, look over the next few weeks for comparisons of similar diseases. Remember you should ALWAYS get a second opinion, especially with dementia related conditions.