When dementia is suspected in patients, physicians will administer tests before giving a formal diagnosis. For patients, whether they are at risk for HD or other diseases associated with dementia, the Mini-Mental State Examination (MMSE) is the most common test that is administered. The MMSE is convenient to administer to patients because it is relatively short, but can still help determine whether a patient's cognitive functions are declining.
In addition to the MMSE, physicians also use other neuropsychological tests that usually involve several mental tasks that require the use of different areas of the brain. For example, the striatum, the brain area most affected in HD, has been implicated in sequence and procedure learning. Since the neuropsychological tasks test different regions of the brain, physicians can use the results to determine what regions of the brain have been affected. When patients are tested for dementia using these tests, their performance is compared to that of healthy individuals on the same tasks. Researchers are still determining which neuropsychological tests are most suitable for evaluating certain regions of the brain.
Last Modified: 05/22/2009
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