Assessment of suspected dementia

Consulation two should be used to gather information by performing the following assessments:

• Mini Mental State Examination (sMMSE) and Clock Drawing Test (CDT) or
• General Practitioner Assessment of Cognition (GPCOG) and if indicated
• Geriatric Depression Scale (GDS)

Look for specific conditions that mimic dementia (depression, delirium, drugs – refer to the Differential diagnosis - 3Ds tab) or that can aggravate dementia e.g. cardiac failure, use of anti-cholinergic drugs.

Check nutrition, hygiene, visual or hearing impairment and consider other factors that may affect capability during assessment such as: level of education, skills, previous level of functioning and ability, language, psychiatric illness and physical or neurological problems.

Draw from knowledge of and judgement about the patient.

A history of loss of function is more indicative of dementia than complaints of memory issues alone.

Please note that all screening instruments used to assess dementia in general practice have high rates of over diagnosis (false positives) and moderate under diagnosis (false negatives), so the full clinical presentation needs to be taken into account.^[1]

Cognitive Assessment - CDAMS Preferred Assessment tools

Additional useful resources