Early diagnosis of dementia: which tests are indicated? What are their costs?
| Autor: | G. J. M. Walstra, H. van Crevel, W.A. van Gool |
|---|---|
| Jazyk: | angličtina |
| Rok vydání: | 1999 |
| Předmět: |
Diagnostic Imaging
Pediatrics medicine.medical_specialty Neurology Cost Control Cost effectiveness Cost-Benefit Analysis Neuropsychological Tests Apolipoproteins E Alzheimer Disease Predictive Value of Tests mental disorders medicine Prevalence Dementia Humans Protein Isoforms Depression (differential diagnoses) Neuroradiology Aged Netherlands business.industry Diagnostic Tests Routine Dementia Vascular Memory clinic Guideline Middle Aged medicine.disease Temporal Lobe Surgery Treatment Outcome Predictive value of tests Practice Guidelines as Topic Neurology (clinical) business |
| Zdroj: | Journal of neurology. 246(2):73-78 |
| ISSN: | 0340-5354 |
| DOI: | 10.1007/s004150050311 |
| Popis: | Dementia is reversible in a minority of patients, and these should be diagnosed but without subjecting the majority with irreversible disease to an excessive set of investigations. Should a battery of ancillary investigations be performed routinely in dementia? Or can these tests be carried out as clinically indicated? Three arguments are important to answer this question. (a) Reversible dementia is rare: about 1% of cases. (b) If the clinical criteria for diagnosing primary degenerative disease are used consistently, the results of investigations can be predicted with sufficient accuracy, except those of blood tests. (c) Treatment of reversible dementia has the best results in its most frequent causes: depression and drug intoxication; however, treatment of medical and surgical causes of dementia may also be effective. Based on these three considerations, we propose the following guideline in the setting of a memory clinic: to perform blood tests in every patient with dementia, but also to perform other tests, such as electroencephalography (EEG) and computed tomography (CT), as clinically indicated. |
| Databáze: | OpenAIRE |
| Externí odkaz: |
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