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VA Neurologist Promotes Routine Use of Screening Tool to Earlier Identify Patients with Dementia
According to J. Riley McCarten, MD, medical director of the Geriatric Research Education and Clinical Center (GRECC) at the Minneapolis VA Health Care System, routine screening for mental function or cognitive impairment is rarely done in the VA or the private sector. Read this Article and participate in our poll:
Comments (4)
#4
susan
Said this on 5-2-2012 At 03:29 pm
I agree with Toni!
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#3
MD
Said this on 5-2-2012 At 01:17 pm
In theory, a great idea, especially given that 20% of the population or 70 million people will be 65 or older by 2030. However, Primary Care has taken on additional expectations and requirements in the last decade. The VA clinical reminders alone have increased significantly but the dedicated office appointment time has not. A routine office encounter cannot continue to take on more and more. I teach medical students and unfortunately many are not interested in becoming primary care physicians - and it is increasingly obvious why! We need to think about unloading the PCPs and not adding to their workloads.
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#2
steven
Said this on 4-20-2012 At 06:27 am
My concern is that it is easy for a neurologist to add this "simple screening" test but he is not aware of how much primary care in the VA already has to do in the way of screenings. I am all in favor of dementia screening. However if he can help us remove some other routine required screens (for adl, iadl, depression, alcohol, ptsd, it goes on and on) then this works. If not it makes the "screening" exams last longer than the meat of the visit: caring for medical issues we already know about, the medications, med reconciliation,etc
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#1
toni
Said this on 4-16-2012 At 05:22 pm
the primary care provider already has to much to address. Have a speech language pathologist (SLP) or an occupational Therapist (OTR) assigned to each PACT and have that person do the cognitive screen. That person could also recommend appropriate treatments! why have the PCP do the screen which will have to be done again by the SLP or OT seeing the patient to treat for the cognitive issue
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