QMG Memory Clinic: Supporting Patients in Memory Care

Mem­o­ry loss is a com­mon con­cern for many indi­vid­u­als, often lead­ing to wor­ries about Alzheimer’s dis­ease or relat­ed dis­or­ders. Mar­i­anne McClain, PsyD, Adult Neu­ropsy­chol­o­gist with Quin­cy Med­ical Group (QMG) and the QMG Mem­o­ry Clin­ic, empha­sizes that mem­o­ry loss does not always indi­cate a pro­gres­sive condition.

Dr. McClain shares that mem­o­ry loss is also com­mon­ly asso­ci­at­ed with poten­tial­ly treat­able med­ical con­di­tions, such as infec­tion, meta­bol­ic changes, nutri­tion­al defi­cien­cies, dehy­dra­tion, or oth­er health fac­tors. The QMG Mem­o­ry Clin­ic is designed to eval­u­ate and treat adults who are expe­ri­enc­ing mem­o­ry loss or oth­er changes in thinking.

“There are many poten­tial­ly mod­i­fi­able fac­tors that can con­tribute to mem­o­ry loss, such as dimin­ished sen­so­ry input (e.g., decreased vision or hear­ing), med­ica­tion side effects, sub­stance use, emo­tion­al dis­tress, dis­rupt­ed sleep, chron­ic pain, lack of inter­per­son­al con­nect­ed­ness, seden­tary lifestyle, and oth­er fac­tors,” Dr. McClain explained.

Dr. McClain under­scores the sig­nif­i­cance of over­all health, par­tic­u­lar­ly heart and blood ves­sel health, in rela­tion to brain health. Fac­tors such as dia­betes, obe­si­ty, high cho­les­terol, hyper­ten­sion, and inac­tiv­i­ty can increase the risk of mem­o­ry loss. Con­verse­ly, lifestyle choic­es like exer­cise, men­tal stim­u­la­tion, social inter­ac­tion, ade­quate sleep, and prop­er nutri­tion can pro­mote brain health and poten­tial­ly pro­tect against mem­o­ry decline.

One cru­cial ques­tion often asked is when patients should seek care for their symp­toms. Dr. McClain advis­es that while some for­get­ful­ness and slow­ing down of cog­ni­tive func­tions is a nat­ur­al part of aging, demen­tia is not.

“Demen­tia reflects a sig­nif­i­cant decline in more than one aspect of think­ing (e.g., mem­o­ry, atten­tion, use of lan­guage, etc.) that neg­a­tive­ly impacts func­tion­ing,” she explained. ​“If patients or loved ones notice changes in think­ing that impact their abil­i­ty to engage in dai­ly tasks, they are encour­aged to talk to their doc­tor to help deter­mine whether changes reflect healthy aging or require fur­ther assessment.”

Some warn­ing signs that indi­cate the need to seek care include:

• For­get­ting new­ly learned infor­ma­tion (e.g., ask­ing repeat questions/​retelling infor­ma­tion repeat­ed­ly with­in brief time frames or for­get­ting impor­tant events/​appointments).
• Dif­fi­cul­ty com­plet­ing pre­vi­ous­ly rou­tine tasks (e.g., for­get­ting steps in a known recipe, trou­ble pay­ing bills that they nor­mal­ly pay, becom­ing lost while dri­ving to famil­iar loca­tions, or decreased atten­tion to hygiene/​grooming).
• Mis­plac­ing items with dif­fi­cul­ty retrac­ing steps to find them or find­ing items in atyp­i­cal loca­tions.
• New lan­guage dif­fi­cul­ty (e.g., stop­ping in the mid­dle of a sen­tence with­out abil­i­ty to resume their train of thought or sig­nif­i­cant dif­fi­cul­ty find­ing the word for com­mon objects/​using the wrong words)
• Con­fu­sion as to where they are or how they got some­where. The Alzheimer’s Asso­ci­a­tion has some excel­lent resources, includ­ing a web­page that elab­o­rates on these and oth­er warn­ing signs of con­cern­ing mem­o­ry loss that may be ben­e­fi­cial: https://​www​.alz​.org/​a​l​z​h​e​i​m​e​r​s​-​d​e​m​e​n​t​i​a​/​1​0​_​signs.

The QMG Mem­o­ry Clin­ic takes a mul­ti­dis­ci­pli­nary approach, bring­ing togeth­er a team of experts who can address var­i­ous aspects of mem­o­ry and cog­ni­tive health. This approach allows patients to access dif­fer­ent spe­cial­ty providers dur­ing a sin­gle vis­it, sav­ing time and stream­lin­ing the diag­nos­tic process.

“The clin­ic can be an impor­tant sup­port to patients through iden­ti­fi­ca­tion of fac­tors that may con­tribute to think­ing dif­fi­cul­ties, so that these areas can be tar­get­ed in treat­ment. With effec­tive inter­ven­tion for poten­tial­ly mod­i­fi­able fac­tors, mem­o­ry and oth­er think­ing prob­lems may resolve,” said Dr. McClain.

In the event that the eval­u­a­tion iden­ti­fies con­cern for demen­tia, the QMG Mem­o­ry Clin­ic team plays an essen­tial role in pro­vi­sion of sup­port for patients and care­givers in under­stand­ing their diag­no­sis, short- and long-term care plan­ning, and ini­ti­a­tion of treatment.

In addi­tion to Dr. McClain, the QMG Mem­o­ry Clin­ic team includes the physi­cian and nurs­ing team of Hal­ley Ander­son, D.O., a board-cer­ti­fied physi­cian spe­cial­iz­ing in geri­atrics, and Stephanie Flesner, reg­is­tered nurse. Bri­an Good­win, a med­ical social work­er, is also on-hand and offers infor­ma­tion on avail­able ser­vices and pro­vides fol­low-up support.

Fur­ther­more, Kelsey Von­der­Haar, a speech-lan­guage ther­a­pist with train­ing in cog­ni­tive reha­bil­i­ta­tion, devel­oped a spe­cial­ized group pro­gram called ​“Aging Grace­ful­ly” to assist Mem­o­ry Clin­ic patients in imple­ment­ing strate­gies to enhance dai­ly functioning.

“Under­go­ing an eval­u­a­tion with providers across dis­ci­plines facil­i­tates a more thor­ough assess­ment of dif­fer­ent fac­tors that may impact think­ing (e.g., med­ical, sit­u­a­tion­al, or lifestyle fac­tors) and allows for unique per­spec­tives that may bring atten­tion to a con­cern out­side the usu­al purview of the oth­er providers, which may improve diag­nos­tic accu­ra­cy,” Dr. McClain shared. ​“In addi­tion, meet­ing with a team pro­vides broad­er sup­ports and eas­i­er access to assis­tance with imple­ment­ing treat­ment recommendations.”

With the exper­tise of the QMG Mem­o­ry Clin­ic team, patients can find solace, under­stand­ing, and guid­ance on their jour­ney toward opti­mal mem­o­ry health. To learn more, call (217) 222‑6550, ext. 3788 or click here.