J Am Board Fam Med
-
Review Practice Guideline
Practical guidelines for the recognition and diagnosis of dementia.
To date, user-friendly, practical guidelines for dementia have not been available for busy family physicians. However, the growing number of patients with dementia means that primary care physicians will have an increasingly important role in the diagnosis and subsequent management of dementia. ⋯ We review the pathophysiology of AD and discuss recommended diagnostic protocols and the importance of early diagnosis. An AD diagnostic algorithm is provided, with clearly defined steps for screening and diagnosing AD and assessing daily functioning, behavioral symptoms, and caregiver status.
-
A growing body of research points to regular, comprehensive mental health screening in primary care practices as an effective tool, but a thorough and efficient approach is not yet widely used. The purpose of this report is to describe the pattern of mental health-related concerns, protective and social risk factors reported by adolescents during routine well-child visits in primary care settings, and their occurrence among teens that screen positive for either depression or anxiety with brief validated measures. ⋯ Comprehensive primary care mental health screening that considers both anxiety and depression while including strength-based and psychosocial support questions is a helpful adjunct to clinical practices and has been done routinely by using an electronic tool at the point of care. Because certain common somatic and emotional concerns can precede depression and anxiety, routine screening for these issues along with depression and anxiety screening is suggested.
-
Strongyloides is endemic in parts of the United States. Most often it is asymptomatic but it has a wide range of clinical presentations. ⋯ Both hyperinfection and disseminated strongyloides usually occur in immunosuppressed patients. We report a case of hyperinfection with strongyloides in a man presenting with fever of unknown origin who was not immunosuppressed.