My mother was diagnosed with dementia in Dec 2014. Do you recommend dementia patients have a yearly cognitive evaluation? Thanks, Diane

Hi Diane, thanks for writing in. Did she get a diagnosis of a specific type of dementia, or just “dementia”? I think it would be useful to go back and find out what TYPE of dementia she has, if possible, but otherwise I don’t think a yearly evaluation (other than a trip to the doctor to check on meds, blood pressure, etc.) is necessary with a neurologist. Unless you’re seeing really different symptoms that you want to know more about, sometimes a let’s-talk-dementia eval is unnecessarily upsetting.