(Continued from page 10)

• Ringgenberg also reported that the department may try out a new pager system. The system uses a phone app that would allow responders to see who is responding to calls. The system is free to try for 60 days, after that it is $800 a month. Both rescue and fire will use the system.
• Rescue is still having a problem finding enough people to respond to calls. Some calls are answered by only one person, while other calls have plenty of responders; it all depends on the time of the day and the nature of the call. More applications are being taken.

• Char Telkamp

• Dementia is at once a huge diagnostic and therapeutic challenge for any physician, and a terribly devastating and dreaded condition for any patient and family.
• Something like 6.8 million people in

the US have dementia and almost one-half of all people greater than 85 years old have the diagnosis. Take hope, however, since that means almost one-half of those greater than 85 are NOT demented.
• This is not a simple topic. Dementia is not a specific disease but rather a term for a number of symptoms that can be caused by a number of brain disorders. The National Institute of Neurologic Disorders and Stroke defines people with dementia as having "impaired intellectual functioning that interferes with normal activities and relationships."
• The cardinal sign for dementia is the loss of antegrade memory, or rather losing the ability to learn a new thing, and to hang on to it. A simple test for antegrade memory is to ask the patient to remember three objects, and then ask later to recall those three things. Sometimes people with significant dementia can remember much of their past, but cannot learn a new thing.
• Memory testing is not all of what defines dementia, however, since intellect involves other faculties such as language, perception, reasoning, judgment, and behavior. Learning, or antegrade memory, pulls these other brain activities together, however, and therefore is the crucial element for brain function.

(Continued on page 12)