Diagnosing dementia: No easy job

BMC Family Practice

Correspondence

Jan De Lepeleire¹  Birgitte Schoenmakers¹  Frank Buntinx²  Louis Paquay³  Steve Iliffe⁴ 

[1] Department of General Practice, Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Kapucijnenvoer 33, blok J, B 3000, Leuven, Belgium;Department of General Practice, Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Kapucijnenvoer 33, blok J, B 3000, Leuven, Belgium;Department of General Practice, Maastricht University, PO box 616, Nl 6200Maastricht, MD, The Netherlands;Department of General Practice, Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Kapucijnenvoer 33, blok J, B 3000, Leuven, Belgium;Wit-gele Kruis van Belgie, Ad. Lacomblélaan 69, 1030, Brussels, Belgium;Department of Primary Care & Population Health, Royal Free Campus, University College London, Rowland Hill St, NW3 2PF, London, UK;

关键词: Dementia;    Diagnostic Process;    Monitoring Phase;    Illness Script;    Objective Burden;   

DOI  :  10.1186/1471-2296-12-60

 received in 2010-08-12, accepted in 2011-06-27,  发布年份 2011

来源: Springer

【 摘 要 】

BackgroundFrom both clinical experience and research we learned that in complex progressive disorders such as dementia, diagnosis includes multiple steps, each with their own clinical and research characteristics.DiscussionDiagnosing starts with a trigger phase in which the GP gradually realizes that dementia may be emerging. This is followed by a disease-oriented diagnosis and subsequently a care -oriented diagnosis. In parallel the GP should consider the consequences of this process for the caregiver and the interaction between both. As soon as a comprehensive diagnosis and care plan are available, monitoring follows.SummaryWe propose to split the diagnostic process into four diagnostic steps, followed by a monitoring phase. We recommend to include these steps when designing studies on screening, diagnosis and monitoring of patients with dementia and their families.

【 授权许可】

CC BY   
© Buntinx et al; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. 2011