Do you feel medical professionals should take more of a lead in discussing cognitive decline and mental health issues with their patients?

For clarity: it's HIPAA, not HIPPA.

"The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA) is a federal law that required the creation of national standards to protect sensitive patient health information from being disclosed without the patient's consent or knowledge."

Source: https://www.cdc.gov

I always spell it wrong .🙄

My device always wants to autocorrect it to hippo

My autocorrect drives me crazy! I don’t always have the chance to edit its errors!

I am allergic to penicillin and I used to have to look up the spelling every time I filled out forms for my doctor stating my allergies!

Absolutely doctors should take more of a lead in discussing dementia and mental health with their patients. I'd go so far as to say they should also be discussing it with the family member who almost always has to bring the senior to the doctor's appointment because that person is usually the one who is taking care of them at home.

I don't think they touch on it with their patients and the family members/caregivers because they don't want to deal with the reaction and maybe even a possible altercation. So they just brush it off and leave it to the patient or their caregivers to deal with. Then of course there's the privacy issue which oftentimes can be totally ridiculous.

I've had many care clients that I had to bring to the doctor and accompany into the exam room. Yet some doctors would ask that I wait outside when they talked to the client. They would completely ignore the fact that the elderly patient being escorted by a caregiver couldn't get to the appointment on their own. Or doesn't remember the doctor's name, but they will discuss their health needs with them alone.

These days I insist on having the contact information of a care client's POA/ health agent and an emergency contact number of a local person who can be at a client's home quickly if needs be. I also insist that the client's health agent is honest with us so I know what a situation I'm sending a caregiver into. No surprises and no minimizing what the person needs.

@Geaton

Waytomisery and everyone else here is an adult. No one needs you to correct or "clarify" anything. Everyone including yourself knew what Way meant about 'HIPPA' and 'HIPAA'. Nothing wrong with spelling something correctly in your own comments and responses without correcting someone.

I am bad at spelling, grammar and punctuation to begin with .
Autocorrect sometimes is my friend , but not always when it puts a different word that changes the meaning . Uggh . It also frequently changes wouldn’t to would .
I like numbers and math . There is only one correct answer.

Burnt,

I remember hearing the term ‘senile’ when I was a kid or ‘feeble minded.’ I had no idea what having ‘dementia’ meant.

I just wish that my mom’s doctors would have told mom and about the possibility of Parkinson’s patients having dementia.

I admit that I missed the early signs of dementia because I didn’t know to look out for it.

My younger brother has been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease and he had no idea what was going on with him.

Unless, we bring the topic up first, they don’t usually address the issue.

I do see lots of commercials now on television now about meds for agitation that can accompany dementia.

But when mom was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease those commercials weren’t around.

Mom did get dementia later on. She kept thinking her memory loss was due to her seizures that she dealt with several years back.

burnt ,
I agree the privacy thing can get ridiculous at times . It can make it harder to get care for an elderly confused person, who has no POA. But I understand the dilemma is there with no POA, which is why some doctors are more fearful than others to share information . No easy answers I guess , unless there are some changes made to privacy laws .

Conversely ,
when my FIL was in the hospital , the doctor asked my FIL who I was . My FIL said his DIL . Then the doctor was telling me how I would have to bring FIL to his office as an outpatient for respiratory tests and set up a Cpap machine every night and place it on FIL’s face. That doctor ASSUMED that FIL lived with me and that I was his caregiver . The doctor was being quite pompous in front of a group of students he had with him .
I answered with “ I’m not his POA and my FIL does not live with me, he lives in AL.”

Way,

Remember the spelling bees in school? LOL 😆

I wanted one of those blue ribbons so badly! I finally won one year and was so excited!

Most of the time I lost out to other classmates when it came to spelling!

The nuns at my school would circle all grammatical errors with a red pen and take points off, even if answers to questions were correct! They were very strict!

My oldest daughter would challenge her teachers! I wasn’t confident enough to do that. She had a 99 on a test and she saw that a point was taken off on a correct answer and pointed it out to the teacher.

My daughter knew that she deserved a perfect ‘100’ score! She didn’t have any grammatical errors. I would have said, ‘Eh, 99 is good enough!’ The teacher told my daughter, “You’re right, and changed her grade to 100.”

If it's possible, ask if the doctor has experience with older/elderly patients. Or is the office geared towards a younger population? This may be very hard to do in isolated/rural areas since medical care is scarce. But, worth a try. Before going into the primary care appointment, call the office, ask if you can talk to them about what your concerns are with the person you're bringing in-keep it short, say one or two issues. That you need help, more information. That you want to be fully prepared for this important visit-and you need help to do so. Next aspect of this, is then a referral to a neurologist by the doctor. That would be the person who has the training, expertise and experience with brain health issues and decline. Wait time for appointments are at least six months. Call that office ahead of time-same routine-tell them you must have help. At the appointment, have all your information ready, questions too. If possible, keep this to the most pressing problems-say increased agitation, forgetfulness, wandering. Ask if they have a social worker on staff to help you source rescources in your area.

Geaton,

Thanks for posting the history of HIPAA laws. A lot of people don’t realize how these laws work. Doctors are very aware of laws and are careful not to violate them.

A friend of mine switched from being a criminal attorney (prosecutor) and went into malpractice and stays extremely busy working for doctors and hospitals.

Ariadnee,

I agree that providing background information is important. Good idea about noting everything before the actual doctor appointment.

The reason I spelt HIPAA wrongly is that I have never known what it stood for, so I just remember the letters. It’s USA legislation that we don’t have here in Oz and so never learned in Law School. So now I just have to remember ‘Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act’. I think that’s the first time anyone has actually set it out. Not quite sure how it fits in with Insurance Portability, but thanks, Geaton.

I still think it would be quite reasonable when first signing on with a doctor for everyone to provide a HIPAA(!) so that a doctor could make contact in an emergency or when necessary. Particularly for the elderly.

I’m sure I spell it wrong because I spell
it the way people say it .
HIPAA should be pronounced with a long “I” vowel sound . Everyone says it to rhyme with PIPPA with the short “I” sound .

Hold no HIPAA (or Aus equivalent) in fact LO stated could do everything on own. So I have no idea if any check-ins, discussions or screening for cognition changes happens.

However, when LO last in ER, the ER Dr called to inform me & also ask questions as I was noted as NOK.

It still appears to be a somewhat grey area.

Yes. My aunt told me how frustrated she was that in all the signs my mother showed the doctor did NO testing and didn't refer her to anyone. This could have been a much easier road otherwise.

I might be very wrong, but I'm wondering if your loved one is say over 85 and just not his or her self, we should just assume it's a form of dementia, and learn all you can about it and treat them as it is dementia?

Anxiety,

I think about that myself at times! Once we hit a certain point we start to fall apart! 😁