Hello.

When I went to my general practitioner the year I turned 50 I couldn’t help but notice that my annual physical was longer, more extensive, more expensive, and focused on organs of my body that prior to my fiftieth birthday no one including myself seemed to have  paid much attention too.

We spent 15 minutes talking about my prostate. We spent 10 minutes talking about the density of my bones. We spend five minutes talking about the frequency and ease for me to pass water, and almost a full ten minutes exploring in detail my bowel movements, past-present-future. Cholesterol got kicked up the list of priorities of things to worry about. Stress tests were discussed as a definite possibility. And “Oh by the way,” said my GP “Don’t forget take your own blood pressure every few minutes; worry about clogged arteries, blood clots, glaucoma, blood clots, glaucoma, COPD, IBS, RSLS, ABC, XYZ; and last but certainly not least pay special attention to the frequency, duration, and intensity of my sexual experiences. ”

All these concerns were measured by tests and charts comparing them against the “norm” of other 50-year-old males, and discussed with me at great length. I left the office with a handful of new prescriptions another handful of pamphlets and the admonition that it was really important for me now that I was 50 years old to have a complete physical every year.

Two weeks after my fifty-eighth birthday I was diagnosed with dementia probably of the Alzheimer’s type. It had taken bevy or a gaggle or at least large group of highly qualified and trained specialist to collectively agree on the diagnoses.

Wouldn’t it have been wiser of me and my general practitioner to pay more attention to my favorite organ (my BRAIN) when I turned 50? It is past time for many of us baby boomers to establish a baseline of our cognitive functions. How well do we remember. How well do we understand. How well can we figure things out? How “well” is our brain - compared to other brains of other human beings who are the same sex and age?

I now believe that everyone upon living to attend their 50th birthday party should ask their doctor to include testing the various cognitive functions of their brain that year and every three years for the rest of their lives.

When we are experiencing the symptoms of cognitive disorders or deficits it certainly behooves us to immediately ask to be screened for the various forms of dementia. But most certainly having a baseline to compare these results to would be very useful to our physician and to ourselves to appreciate and understand what was going on between our ears.

There is a barrier when applying for long term care insurance if you have previously been tested, screened, and/or mentioned the word dementia in your doctor’s presence. Get the insurance before you turn 50! Currently there are semantic games being played between physicians and insurances companies concerning if they will pay for tests that establish a base line, as opposed to screening to confirm or disconfirm a possible diagnosis of Dementia, probably of this or that type.

I haven’t found the right word to describe screening without saying screening. Many people actually say they are frightened to ask to be screened for dementia. Many people are frightened to the point where they won’t even say the word dementia. A giant step towards lessening those fears would be to include brain screening, establishing cognitive benchmarks, on our fiftieth birthday and then comparing them by using the same instrumentsevery three years thereafter.

~Richard