Dementia Assessment – Medical Speech Pathology – Cognitive Communication Evaluation and Clinical Review Material

Dementia Assessment – Medical Speech Pathology – Cognitive Communication
Evaluation and Clinical Review Material


Assessment of Dementia - ANS ✔✔-Case History/Medical Chart

-Patient & Family Interview

-Informal

-Formal - Standardized Tests

-Wrap-Up!!



main reason for comprehensive testing - ANS ✔✔-Identify impaired and spared abilities to help
in developing a care plan

-To provide baseline for measuring response to treatment

-Counseling and caregiver training



AREAS TO ASSESS - ANS ✔✔memory

cognition (executive functioning, alertness, attention, orientation)

language



informal tasks

memory impairment - ANS ✔✔Memory impairment:

-Immediate/delayed story retell (if you use stimuli from the Arizona, it would be considered a
formal screen).

(verbal episodic memory)

-Autobiographical Memory Interview

-word learning



Other aspects of cognition

, -Alertness, Orientation, Attention,

-Executive functions (observations, interviews)



informal tasks

other aspects of cognition - ANS ✔✔Other aspects of cognition

-Alertness, Orientation, Attention,

-Executive functions (observations, interviews)



informal tasks

language functioning

expressive and receptive - ANS ✔✔-Semantics & pragmatics should be more of a focus than
syntax and phonology

-picture description

-story retelling




-Can use, for example:

..BDAE, WAB

..Boston Naming Test, Test of Adult Word Finding

..Communicative Abilities of Daily Living (CADL)



-However, there are limitations on the use of these measures w/ patients with dementia given
they are standardized on PWA.



use just to get an idea of language