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Originally Posted by senior citizen
True.......however....
The Mayo Clinic site claims that there is indeed a difference..........
It is only after death occurs , once an autopsy is performed, that Alzheimers can be definitely diagnosed..........and just how many of us, as caregivers, would want to subject their loved one to an autopsy........just to know?
Basically, dementia refers to a set of symptoms.
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I'm fully aware that there's a difference. I was just pointing out that it's not uncommon for vascular dementia to exist together with Alzheimer's.
Yes, the term dementia covers many different forms.
But I happen to believe that an autopsy isn't needed to diagnose Alzheimer's. A very young doctor diagnosed my father in about 5 minutes and my father wasn't exhibiting any unusual behavior at the time of that office visit.
He asked him about 5 questions like, "Who's the president of the United States?" and "What year is it?" Then he asked him to draw the face of a clock.
The doctor then said, "I believe your father has Alzheimer's but I could be wrong. The only way you can know for sure is through a process of ruling everything else out." He then suggested we could rule out vascular dementia by getting an MRI. So we did that just to make sure.
At that point we were satisfied that there would be no point in digging any deeper. And I believe he had also been tested to make sure there was no vitamin deficiency.