welcome to the organic green doctor blog

i am a family physician who was diagnosed with
early mild cognitive impairment(mci) amnestic type on december 21, 2010
this is a precursor to alzheimers disease
because of this diagnosis i have opted to stop practicing medicine
this blog will be about my journey with this disease
please feel free to follow me along this path
i will continue blogging on organic gardening, green living,
solar power, rainwater collection, and healthy living
i will blog on these plus other things noted to be interesting

Wednesday, February 19, 2020

my story revisited 37-our first video

MY STORY REVISITED-OUR FIRST VIDEO
Image result for organicgreendoctor
i had forgotten my wife she and i did this video that day
basically we were interviewed and filmed first as a couple then later i was interviewed as a patient by myself
this video was to be used as an educational video for medical students and doctors on how to do a neurological memory test 
at the end of the blog done almost 9 years ago i wrote this

catching this disease early is important to begin treatment and to help patients manage their lives

little did i know how important this early diagnosis was
so many times folks dont get diagnosed until things have advanced too far
i was diagnosed real early so i began aricept (donepezil) earlier than most patients do and feel like i may have gotten some benefit from this by slowing down my symptoms

i also was incentivized to become aggressive with my health to do all those healthy things we need to be doing

we my wife she and i have been able to plan out our lives while we are in control over the last 9 years

i always wondered where i would be today memory wise if had not got diagnosed when i did

months later my wife she and i also did a 5 minute video about my story which is linked on the above heading to this blog if you are on a computer
you can also click below to watch it

the educational video we did is not available to post

XXXX
09-22-2011
VIDEO
my wife she and i celebrated end alz on alzheimers action day
by doing a video filmed at university of texas southwestern
we wore our purple for the video

for the video we were interviewed as patient and spouse then
i was videotaped having a provider do a mental status exam
on me asking me questions from a standard exam

the goal of this is to show it to medical students, residents, and
doctors to show them how to do a mental status exam on a
patient
surprisingly many physicians dont know how to do this test well
including this writer when he was in practice

patients at different levels of the disease process were used
from mild like me to more advanced alzheimers disease
i had only minimal difficulties doing the test
but some of the short term memory problems showed up

if i was in a doctors office being screened using the old tests
no abnormalities would show up but
this newer test called the moca test (like the coffee) picks up
some of the difficulties that i have

hopefully this video will help these new doctors to be, new doctors,
and doctors to learn how to administer these tests

catching this disease early is important to begin treatment
and to help patients manage their lives
XXXX

a common exam done in the office is a clock test where you are given three words to remember then you are asked to draw a clock and put a certain time on it
if you are far enough along in the disease this test will be abnormal
if you are early in the disease it will be normal
eg
my clock test was normal when i was first diagnosed with mci (mild cognitive impairment)
the moca test however was not normal but showed i probably had mci
another in office test done is a mmse
mine was normal and has always been normal

so if you have memory testing because you are worried you have memory issues
the clock test and the mmse may not pick up your memory loss
but
the moca test will

its my opinion based on my real life experience
that
the earlier you know the better

the organicgreen doctor

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