Diagnosis

If you visit your doctor with concerns about dementia symptoms, first they will:

• Check on your physical health and medical history.
• Ask you about your symptoms and concerns.
• Run a blood test to rule out other causes for your symptoms, like vitamin deficiencies or a thyroid disorder.
• Ask you to complete some quick memory and thinking tests.
• If possible, ask someone who knows you well about your symptoms and how they affect you.

If your doctor suspects Alzheimer’s or another cause of dementia, they may then refer you to a memory clinic or another specialist clinic. Here, a doctor or nurse will run through some further questions and tests with you. These are likely to include:

• Questions about your concerns, your symptoms and how they affect you day to day.
• A physical check-up.
• A brain scan and maybe a lumbar puncture.
• Completing some in-depth tests to check your memory, thinking and problem-solving skills.

Occasionally a lumbar puncture is used, where a sample of fluid is taken from the base of the spine. This tests for abnormal levels of proteins linked to Alzheimer’s disease, called amyloid and tau.

Together, all of these things will help a doctor find out about any problems in memory or thinking and the likely cause.

If symptoms are mild or the cause is uncertain, the doctor may want to look for any further changes over time. For this reason, they may ask you to come back in six months or a year to repeat these assessments.

Currently, there is no way to diagnose any type of dementia with 100% accuracy. Your doctor will make the best judgement about the most likely cause of your symptoms based on the information they collect from these assessments and tests.

For more information on what to do if you are experiencing symptoms and want to know more about dementia diagnosis read our booklet “Problems with your memory?” or contact the Dementia Research Infoline on 0300 111 5111 or infoline@alzheimersresearchuk.org