We are a major regional centre offering highly specialised diagnosis.
Run by a consultant neurologist, we see patients – often with rare or unusual symptoms – who require a further opinion. We primarily take referrals from colleagues in a wide range of secondary care services, such as neurologists and consultants in medicine and dementia assessment services.
We are a diagnostic clinic, and once we have made a diagnosis, we work closely with other services who offer management and support for patients.
Who is seen within a cognitive clinic
Our patients come from across the North East and Cumbria and they have been usually seen by clinicians in other services who have completed investigations.
We offer a second opinion on a likely diagnosis when this remains unclear.
Those coming to our clinic will experience cognitive difficulties which typically impact a person’s ability to think, learn, remember, use judgement, and make decisions. Signs of this include memory loss and trouble concentrating, completing tasks, understanding, remembering, following instructions, and solving problems. Other aspects of cognition are use of language, visual processing and motor control.
Patients may have a variety of accompanying neurological, physical or psychological difficulties which may increase the complexity of their needs or the diagnostic decision making.
Many, but not all patients seen in the clinic, have with rare or unusual dementias. Dementias are degenerative brain conditions that result in loss of functions such as memory, language or problem solving.
Our team
The service is led by Professor Tim Griffiths, consultant neurologist, with sessional time from clinical neuropsychologists.
What to expect during an appointment
Most appointments will consist of a review of clinical symptoms, cognitive testing and a detailed neurological examination. Further tests may be arranged to establish the cause of cognitive symptoms including blood tests, neuropsychological assessment, brain imaging and cerebrospinal fluid examination (lumbar puncture).
It is very important that you bring someone with you who may be able to give supporting information about the cognitive difficulties you have experienced.
After the initial appointment, we will wite to the referrer and patient with initial comments. We might have enough information at that stage to give a complete opinion.
If we carry out any further assessments and tests, we will either write again to referrer and patient with a final opinion or bring the patient back to the clinic. We are primarily a diagnostic service and do not routinely follow up patients in the long term.
Clinical expertise and specialist investigations
Neuropsychological assessment – this provides an objective way of characterising cognitive, emotional and behavioural symptoms. It typically involves completing a number of different ‘pen and paper’ tasks of cognition and questionnaires. The process may take a number of hours.
We provide a range of specialist investigations to help understand why you have developed the condition and how best to control your symptoms. These include:
Brain imaging – this has often been done before referral, including CT and MR imaging. These scans can help to identify abnormalities in the brain including patterns of degeneration seen in certain dementias. In the clinic we consider further brain imaging using MRI and more specialist imaging.
Lumbar puncture – this obtains cerebrospinal fluid from the spinal canal, which is the same as the fluid surrounding the brain. The test is done on the day unit and requires local anaesthetic before a needle is placed into the spinal canal to obtain fluid. We often do this to look for evidence of inflammation causing cognitive symptoms and to measure proteins in the fluid that change in some types of dementia.
Electroencephalogram (EEG) – this measures the electrical activity of the brain and can show changes in dementia, and changes that occur if epilepsy is a part of the helps to diagnose the type of epilepsy someone has.
Specialist care and support – our team offers a diagnostic service. We work with other services in primary care such as GPs, and in secondary care – for example memory assessment services, who can provide ongoing support post-diagnosis.
Contact
Secretary to Professor Griffiths, Regional Neurosciences Centre
Useful information:
The Alzheimer’s Society:
Tel: 0333 150 3456 (Dementia Connect support line)
Website: https://www.alzheimers.org.uk/
Dementia UK:
Tel: 0800 888 6678 (Admiral Nurse Dementia Helpline)
Email: [email protected]
Website: https://www.dementiauk.org/
Resource: https://www.dementiauk.org/information-and-support/how-we-can-support-you/dementia-what-next/
Alzheimer’s Research UK: carries out dementia research, answers general questions about dementia and can tell you about how to get involved with research
Tel: 0300 111 5555
Email: [email protected]
Website: https://www.alzheimersresearchuk.org/
NHS guidelines after diagnosis of dementia:
Website: https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/dementia/symptoms-and-diagnosis/just-been-diagnosed/
Driving and Dementia (University of Newcastle):
Resource:https://research.ncl.ac.uk/driving-and-dementia/downloads/
Carers UK
Website: https://www.carersuk.org/
Locations
