The Astute Primary Care Clinician's 3 Keys to Improving Alzheimer's Care

Opening Announcer:
You're listening to ReachMD. Uncover the truth about Alzheimer's in this special series, Alzheimer's Disease: Towards Earlier Detection.

Dr. Matt Birnholz:
Welcome to the ReachMD series Alzheimer’s Disease: Towards Earlier Detection. I’m Dr. Matt Birnholz. On this episode, we caught up with Dr. Marwan Sabbagh, Professor of Neurology and Chief of the Memory Disorders Division at Barrow Neurological Institute. Dr. Sabbagh shared some of his key priorities for the current and future state of Alzheimer’s care.

Dr. Marwan Sabbagh:
First is screen your patients for memory impairment.  Do not dismiss a memory complaint when a patient comes with a memory complaint.  Do not dismiss it.  We used to think of people who complained about their memory as the “worried well.”  Now there’s a new term called SMC, subjective memory complaint, and when patients complain, it turns out that they were right even before the tests were, and so that has become a very important first development. 

Second is, do not be reticent or reluctant to treat your patients, be aggressive, proactive and thoughtful about doing so.  There is now evidence that early treatment and sustained treatment will have less morbidity and mortality over time.

And the third thing is, is that we need to kind of engage in the idea that Alzheimer's disease is going to go from a terminal disease, as we all know it now, to a chronic disease,  We took HIV from a terminal disease to a chronic disease; we are likely to do the same thing with Alzheimer's in the very near future.

Dr. Matt Birnholz:
That was Dr. Marwan Sabbagh from the Barrow Neurological Institute. For access to continuing episodes of Alzheimer’s Disease: Towards Earlier Detection, visit our series page at ReachMD.com. Thanks for joining us.

Closing Announcer:
You've listening to ReachMD. Uncover the truth about Alzheimer's in this special series, Alzheimer's Disease: Towards Earlier Detection. To revisit any part of this discussion and to access other episodes visit ReachMD.com/timehidesalzheimers. Thank you for listening.