Diagnosis

If you are worried about symptoms of dementia, your health, or someone else’s, you should talk to your doctor. There are many causes of memory and thinking problems, including vitamin deficiencies and thyroid disorders. It is important to get the right diagnosis so that the right treatments and help can be given.

When you go to the doctor they will:

• Ask you about your symptoms and how they are affecting you.
• Check your medical history and general health,
• Do some physical tests like blood pressure and a balance or reflexes test.
• Ask you to do some memory and thinking tests.
• Run blood and urine tests to rule out other causes of your symptoms.

Together these tests will help to identify the likely cause of your symptoms. If the doctor suspects you have dementia, you may be referred to a memory clinic or another specialist clinic where more in depth tests can be done.

Brain scans like MRI (magnetic resonance imaging) or CT (computerised tomography), can help to diagnose dementia or rule out other causes of symptoms.

To help make a specific diagnosis of DLB, a type of scan called a SPECT scan (or ‘DaTscan’) may be used. This type of scan can show changes in the brain that are more common in this type of dementia. However, when symptoms of DLB or PDD are quite clear, someone may not need this test.