Proactive Brain Health

Preventative health in the world of Medicine is focused on combating potentially debilitating diseases before they can affect life as we know it.

Most of us go to the doctor at least once a year to discuss how our overall health is going. We schedule tests such as blood work, mammograms, colonoscopies, cardiac tests, etc. We do this because we are trying to identify health issues before they have significant impacts that could change the path of our lives.

One area of our body, however, is often neglected: the brain. Injury to this specific organ can affect your quality of life and take away your independence. Our brains control the very nervous system we count on to control our body’s messaging system. It allows us to learn, to speak, to remember, to move, and it holds the thing most precious to us, our memories.

The recommendation for brain health screening is patients aged 65 and older receive a cognitive assessment at least once yearly as part of their Medicare annual wellness visit. The purpose of the memory screen is to evaluate whether your memory concerns are normal aging symptoms vs early warning signs for a memory disease like Alzheimer’s disease. In fact, more than 90% of older adults feel that it is important to have their memory checked. Unfortunately, only about 16% of patients 65 and older report having their cognition assessed by their doctor. The low percentage may be due to fear of knowing, lack of access to health care, or lack of time available for their doctor to perform the tests. Regardless of the reason, the older population continues to grow and the number of people diagnosed with memory diseases continues to increase. Memory testing is just the first step we can take in being proactive with our brain health. Early detection of memory symptoms can allow more time to reduce risk factors, explore treatment options earlier, and possibly slow memory decline. This is a call to everyone in the community to take control of their brain health and be part of the change in how we treat memory disease. Please contact our clinic to schedule free memory testing, no insurance is needed. ~

Editor’s Note: This article was submitted by Malisa Agard, MD, Principal Investigator for Conquest Research. Visit www. conquestresearch.com or call 407-9160060 to learn more. See ad on page 17.