Chuck Vega, MD, FAAFP - Minding Cognitive Health Across the Continuum: Collaborative Workflows and Tools to Support Preservation, Screening, and Early Diagnosis

And I know you've already seen these questions, but I'm going to go through it really quickly.

Linda, a 67-year-old who is coming in for a follow-up visit.

She is being seen for hypertension.

She is with supportive controls.

She's taking a Cinepro.

She's taking Gavipent as well for sciatica, has elevated LDL, and has overweight.

And she has a positive family history of dementia, mother diagnosed with Alzheimer's dementia at age 75.

And how should we address her brain health and risk factors of dementia with her as part of routine care? And the answer, best answer here is actually the brain care score.

If you're not familiar with the brain care score, this is a tool that we can use to assess someone's risk factors for dementia well before they develop any of the symptoms or signs of cognitive impairment.

In terms of other testing, the APOE testing might give us some idea of her risk overall, but it's a little fraught.

The brain care score gives us modifiable information that we can work on together.

I'll talk about how it can actually help folks to lower their risk of dementia by improving their brain care score.

Blood biomarkers are really only used for Alzheimer's disease in folks who are symptomatic.

So that's a real basic rule.

She is not symptomatic, so therefore I would not use it for her.

And MRI, similarly, that's only for folks who

are symptomatic.