Conversational assessment in memory clinic encounters: interactional profiling for differentiating dementia from...

Area of Science:

• Neurology
• Psychiatry
• Linguistics

Background:

• Dementia diagnosis in the UK faces challenges, including under-diagnosis and limited access to specialist memory clinics.
• Many referrals to memory clinics are for functional memory disorders (FMD), not neurodegenerative conditions.
• Government initiatives emphasize timely diagnosis of dementia.

Purpose of the Study:

• To analyze clinician-patient communication during initial specialist memory clinic visits.
• To establish differential conversational profiles for patients with dementia and FMD.
• To improve the screening and diagnostic process for memory complaints.

Main Methods:

• Video and audio recordings of 25 initial consultations in a UK memory clinic.
• Conversation analysis to identify recurrent communicative practices.
• Comparison of communication patterns between diagnostic groups.

Main Results:

• Two distinct conversational profiles emerged to differentiate dementia from FMD.
• Key differentiating factors include patient's ability to answer personal information questions, display working memory, and respond to compound questions.
• Response latency and level of detail in accounts of memory failure also varied between groups.

Conclusions:

• Distinct conversational profiles observed in patients with FMD and neurodegenerative conditions suggest a valuable diagnostic tool.
• Conversational profiling can support the differential diagnosis of functional versus neurodegenerative memory disorders.
• This approach may enhance the accuracy and efficiency of memory clinic assessments.