Professor Matthew Kiernan

But I suppose you're worried that you can't recall a name or a process, and then a little bit later you do.

So the function is there.

So you haven't lost the function.

Right.

Alzheimer's means you lost the function.

that you need to go down to Coles and get dinner for tonight, those sort of things.

So there's a level of what is intrinsic in your brain function that's laid down.

And these are memories that are laid down and reinforced, but it's the short-term issues that tend to be more problematic.

And that also means your daily function in your job, in your family, in your environment.

So what is the usual progression?

What would you see?

Well, part of it can be...

prolonged word finding difficulties and and we might test for it like you might show them a picture of say the eiffel tower and everyone so that's the eiffel tower so what's that um that's that place that's sort of um not here but it's and it's and it's made a metal and they're sort of talking around so it's fluent it's fluent speech but they can't say eiffel tower or they can't say that's a structure in paris and paris is in france

So the connections are all gone.

There are tests for this?

Specific tests?

Yeah.

You'll have them.

And so either the neurologist will be involved in those tests or there's a neuropsychologist.

It's usually a multidisciplinary approach.