What WAS really useful for us was the battery of cognitive tests they
put my MIL through when she got sent to the dementia specialist by the
family doctor. Hubbie went with her, and sat with her during the tests.
They had a psychometrist administer a pile of tests - very similar to
what you would put a child through looking for learning disabilities -
you know, verbal tests, putting puzzles together, copying little
drawings etc. etc.

I know the abilities of a person with Alzheimer's are always a moving
target, but these tests did give us a starting point for coming to
grips with what she could and couldn't do. Because she was so intact in
terms of personality, and ability to relate socially, if you had met
her at this point, you would not have suspected there was anything
really wrong with her.  My husband (her only child) and I were the ONLY
family members for a very long time who thought something was up - she
carried on her normal life, and friends, her sisters, other family,
neighbours etc. didn't see any signs of a problem. So, we weren't sure
how much of what we were perceiving was us being nutty, vs. genuine
disability, or perhaps depression, stubborness, being difficult and
ornery, who knows what.

When my husband could actually see for himself the concrete evidence of
fairly major holes in her abilities, he was shocked (can I say that
again? It was off the scale shocked.) It was very, very helpful for us,
to nudge us out of complacency and towards a much more realistic set of
expectations for her. We had been getting frustrated with her often
because she seemed like herself, so when she didn't do something, you
didn't know if it was because she couldn't, or just wouldn't because
she didn't feel like it etc. All of a sudden, we realized she was
seriously impaired on many fronts (i.e. she could read text out loud
without comprehending what she read, so leaving written reminders or
instructions didn't help her much). Changed our whole outlook on
dealing with her, and also made us ask a LOT more questions - for
example, when she told us something, we stopped believing her without
checking up and ensuring what she said was actually true (i.e. that she
actually DID make that appointment, and that she actually DID show up).

The results of the testing were also very helpful for dealing with
family members who were unsupportive because they thought she was fine.
It was harder for them to argue faced with concrete evidence.

Personally, I think its worth having done, if you have any doubts about
how impaired your mom is. You might be surprised. Usually they are
much, much worse than they look. After all, its rare you really grill a
loved one to find out if they really CAN read a calendar, tell time or
whatever.

Mary G.

Janice, You can give her the clock test yourself, even if you don't have
the experience to interpret the results.  It's fairly straight forward.
 Google-Draw a Clock test.  Seeing the results helps YOU comprehend
what's missing as Mary so eloquently described.  It won't be of much use
to her as she won't make sense of explaining the deficit.  FWIW, we
chose not to subject my MIL to the extensive cognitive testing, mostly
because we didn't want to re-enforce her losses to her.  At the time,
she was well aware she had problems and we did better keeping her
anxiety level down by concentrating on what was working.  However, the
family was in agreement about her deficits and we didn't need to prove
anything to anyone.  Our only questons revolved around how the
progression was going to go-and the tests don't help with that.
I think it's important to recognize what is working and use it.
Unfortunately, the test results don't tell you how to focus on strengths.
I think that's a strength of this list, because sharing experiences
certainly helps.

Beth