Christopher Patterson, MD, FRCPC
Division of Geriatric Medicine
McMaster University
Hamilton, ON
- What do you do when an older man complains that his wife is more forgetful than one year ago?
- Can you distinguish depression from dementia in an older women who is having difficulty looking after herself?
- How do you manage an individual with dementia who resides in a nursing home and becomes aggressive?
Approaches to these and other clinical situations are addressed in the recently published conclusions from the Canadian Consensus Conference on Dementia.1 This work built upon the earlier recommendations of the Canadian Consensus Conference on the Assessment of Dementia which was published in 1991.2 For the recent con- ference, a more comprehensive view of dementing conditions was undertaken. A panel of Canadian experts in the areas of Geriatric Medicine, Geriatric Psychiatry, Neurology, Family Medicine and other disciplines undertook an evidence-based approach to the recognition, assessment and management of dementing disorders. Recommendations are targeted towards primary care physicians in Canada.
