RESOURCES

	Health Plan Examples
	Glossary
	Abbreviations
	Flow Charts
	Critical Success Factors Examples
	Generic Guidelines for Dementia Assessment
	Booklet by GPs promoting timely dementia diagnosis
	DOMS 2007 Synopsis
	DOMS 2007 Report
	DOMS 2007 Report Appendices

  QUICKLINKS

	Dept of Health & Ageing
	Dementia Collaborative Research Centres
	General Practitioner Assessment of Cognition
	Monash University - Assess Quality of Life
	Hartford Institute for Geriatric Nursing
	The Royal Australian College of General Practitioners
	Cognitive Assessment Special Groups
	- - -	GPs: GPCog CALD: RUDAS Indigenous: KICA-Cog

Why Assess For Dementia?

Why it is important to make diagnosis early?

• Six Reasons Why Early Diagnosis Of Dementia Does Not Occur and Ten Reasons Why It Is Important (pdf)
  Professor Henry Brodaty AO
  Primary Dementia Collaborative Research Centre
  School of Psychiatry
  University of New South Wales, Sydney
  

Primary reasons:

• Diagnosis
  • to find the cause of cognitive symptoms
  • to look for reversible causes
  • to convey information to person with cognitive symptoms (patient, client) and the person's family.
     
• Planning
  • legal
  • financial
  • life decisions
  • work safety
  • driving safety
     
• Treatment
  • to ensure compliance with usual medications
  • to consider ant-dementia medications
     
• Prognosis
  • to be able to advise the person with cognitive symptoms and the     person's family about likely future developments.
     
• Help the care team(s), i.e. acute, primary, community, residential, etc., develop the best Health Plan.