Getting a formal diagnosis

Getting a diagnosis of dementia is not as easy as it looks these days, nor is it as simple as Prime Minister David Cameron thinks it should be

This is because there are so many variations that it is difficult, to understand, let alone detect.

Many these days simply get the new diagnosis of Mild Cognitive Impairment, something which many consultants use as a cop out, because it still covers the same problems that we see in many dementia's these days.

After speaking  to our family doctor the other day, I was amazed at how he described how some professionals willingly label someone as having  type A or B dementia, when they in fact have no real idea, and won't until we pop our clogs.

Some consultants are now changing patients diagnosis from dementia, to Mild Cognitive , simply because the person has not deteriorated fast enough. However this has to be difficult if the person lost their job etc, through having been diagnosed as having any form of dementia.

Yet as my family doctor said, if we were all the same, how is it that some people have been diagnosed as having a type of dementia for up to 15-20 years and are still going. Many of these people have scans to prove that their brain has shrunk etc.

It's because they simply got diagnosed earlier and did not sit back. But moved on and had an active life.

This is rather confusing and In some cases distressing,  because how many others are in the same boat, not knowing anymore about what they have been diagnosed with, especially if you lost things like your job, because you were unable or unsafe to do it. 

This also causes the person to lose confidence, and perhaps become depressed, all caused by possible ,mis diagnosis or clinicians who are too eager to give a name to an illness in the first place. 

This also causes people to lose confidence in the National Health Service, which is very understandable.

As my doctor said there is defiantly something wrong because my brain has shrunk, and because I lost my job as a College Engineer, and cannot remember how to do electrical work, estimates and budgets anymore.

To me this helps me to understand why our National Health Services are in such a mess these days. 

I heard that many people are going through a similar process, of being diagnosed a few years ago, and then having their diagnosis changed by the specialist, so something must be going on within the National Health Service in. The UK

I also understand now that some hospitals do not want you on their books, if you have been diagnosed over ten years.

Which is why you are re- diagnosed with Mild Cognitive Impairment, because you have not deteriorated fast enough, but I guess that's life, although it feels as if we may have been living a very bad dream which no one can answer. 

It's a bit like being diagnosed as having cancer, only to have someone come back years later to say, that you never had it in the first place. 

No one should be labeled as having an illness unless there is proof. 

This illness is difficult to diagnose as there are over 120 variations of dementia, so no matter what happens, they reckon that no two people with any form of dementia can have the same symptoms or problems, we are all individuals

This also leaves me wondering whether some of these so called wrongly diagnosed people, will go on on and sue the doctors who diagnosed them in the first place, it's becoming such a mine field.

So much for the Prime Minister saying that diagnosis of dementia should be done in 6 weeks, I do wonder if he us simply using dementia as a way of deflecting people from the problems he has caused within the National Health Service.