Applying Artificial Intelligence © 5GL Software, Australia High Time for the Medical Professionals To Take Charge of Dementia/Alzheimer's Cases March 2009

The Alzheimer's Scam report should persuade any sensible medical professional that it is high time the issue was put completely in the hands of competent medical professionals.

You may think in your country there are bodies that attempt to protect the victim and families from blatant fraud. You may be very wrong! Consider Australia. It has a Guardianship Tribunal which is supposedly there to protect fraud against families of Alzheimer's victims - in my experience, they aid it! In fact, from my research, when this tribunal in 2005 was asked to call about twelve family witnesess to explain why an Alzheimer's victim ought never be put in the hands of one particular son, this tribunal refused to call any such witnesses.

Typically such a tribunal may be staffed by a lawyer and two intellectuals. For all their good intentions, intellectuals have their own ideas about what is the best thing to do. No matter how incontinent, no matter how disabled, no matter how often left alone, such a tribunal may be convinced "always best to leave person at home not place in nursing home."

The consequences of this are immense stress and worry of sincere members of family, while those who may be psychopaths (growing disorder in society; as is financial greed) or into drugs or other expensive enterprises, may take this opportunity to begin stealing the wealth of the person to themselves. A simple court order can do this trick as our Alzheimer's Scam report demonstrates. Lies can be invented about anything. A genuine Last Will and Testament can be hidden and the schemer goes to a hospital doctor and explains there is no will so please write a report that this person has "testament capacity" else most of the estate will go to the government.

In short, there is no end to scams that can be engineered.

In addition, a person who may have a borderline psychiatric condition can go over the edge and begin scheming against other family members.

The mental status examination in my experience are meaningless with Alzheimer's patients. Absolutely ridiculous in fact! Spend two days with such a person and you now what they are like - no memory of what they said one minute ago; will believe anything and sign anything; has no idea they are incontinent or have anything wrong with their brain and mind. And yet such a person can pass such a mental exam on a "good day"! The stress all this can cause on sincere family members can be immense. The responsibility of when such a person needs a nursing home ought to be solely in the hands of a caring and experienced medical tribunal who is not interested in any aspects of law but to do the best by the victim and family.

The whole idea of a mental status examination for dementia victims is bizarre - the brain itself is destroyed, which means it is not the same brain as when sound. Which areas of the brain do the mental status exams target? This no one even understands and yet without such an understanding and appropriate imaging to understand brain activity, the whole notion of mental status examinations for dementia patients ought to be banned. It is not scientific or sound thinking. In my opinion, about the only person who might, just might, be able to determine how competent a dementia victim is mentally, is an experienced and competent psychiatrist using the theory of psychoanalysis.